NEW STRIDES IN DEATH PENALTY MOVEMENT

Monica Bendykowski, National Program Intern, Philadelphia, PA

Photo: CCADP
Kevin Stanford as a child. Stanford, also shown on the cover, left column, was 17 at the time of his crime, and is currently awaiting execution in Kentucky

In 2002, 71 people were executed by the United States. But on January 24, 2003, the 103rd person to be exonerated since the reinstitution of the death penalty, Rudolph Holton, walked off death row a free man. Thankfully, the past year has seen a number of advances, beyond the findings in Maryland and the victory in Illinois (see, "Illinois and Maryland Set the Stage"), in the move toward death penalty abolition.

On June 20, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a benchmark ruling ending the execution of mentally retarded people. In Atkins v. Virginia, the Court held that it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment to execute death row inmates with mental retardation. The decision reflected the national consensus that had formed on this issue. Mental health experts point out that those with mental retardation are suggestible and have a willingness to please that can lead them to confess, sometimes falsely, to capital crimes. The execution of such individuals is unacceptable in an educated society, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Just four days later, on June 24, 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Ring v. Arizona that, under the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of trial by jury, only a jury, and not a judge, can determine whether a case's circumstances merit a death penalty sentence. The ruling affected nine of the 38 U.S. states that use capital punishment. All nine were required to change their sentencing practices and review past cases of those who were sent to death row by a judge-nearly 800 people in all.

Since 1976, 21 people have been put to death in the U.S. for crimes that they committed as minors; the last six of them have been African American. The fact that the death penalty disproportionately affects people of color is even more true when it comes to juvenile offenders. Of the 81 juvenile offenders on death row in the U.S., 52, or almost two thirds, are people of color. Since 1990, only six other countries-Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iran-have executed juvenile offenders. Such executions not only violate international norms, they also offend our humanity. The mind of a juvenile is by definition less developed than the mind of an adult. As a person gets older, his or her mindset and decision-making skills mature. An action that a person might take on as an adolescent is often an action that the same person will avoid when they are older. The rush to try John Lee Malvo, the 17-year-old sniper suspect, in a state that allows juvenile executions, has brought new attention to this practice and provoked criticism of the juvenile death penalty from The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. Even U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer have stated that their Court should review the constitutionality of executing juveniles.

The recent decisions involving the death penalty in the United States have set fire to national conversation about America's capital punishment system. The American Friends Service Committee absolutely opposes the death penalty. Most immediately we are calling for a halt to executions so that these serious questions about the application of the death penalty can be reviewed. It is time to STOP and rethink the death penalty.

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