Capital punishment for minors

Capital punishment for minors

Capital punishment should not be allowed for minors. One of the major factors that explain why minors should be excluded from capital punishment is the fact that past studies have made a conclusion that a minor’s brain is not well developed (ACLU, 2019). What this means is that there is a high likelihood that the child’s judgments will be poor. This is evident from the development stages of human beings.

It is clear that at the early stages of life, the decisions of a child will be based on what he/she sees around and not what is considered morally right or legal. Therefore, the teen will tend to make hasty judgments that will lead to offences that may lead to capital punishment.

Minors often tend to make poor decisions based on their emotions as well as peer influence. Mostly, teens will make decisions, depending on what the others are doing. This is unlike adults who tend to be quite autonomous in their thinking. Therefore, if a decision is made that the minors should be subjected to capital punishment, this will be equivalent to punishing an undeserving or irrational being. This is because although the minor might seem to have arrived at a decision, their reasoning capacity is still wanting.

The immaturity of the minors is a key factor to be considered in the debate about capital punishment. This is because the brains of the minors have not become capable enough to handle pressures of life as well as weigh the consequences of their actions (ACLU, 2019). Therefore, their decisions will be as a result of the influence of their peers or their emotions at the time.

The other reason why death punishment should not be allowed is that crimes committed by the minors may be as a result of various factors around them which they are not able to endure. As much as the children have engaged in crime, they may not understand all things. This means that most of the actions that the kids might engage in will be as a result of their current condition which they find intolerable and the only way to mitigate the threat is through committing offences that may be categorized under capital offences. Minors, especially those from poor backgrounds, may commit offences to satisfy their felt needs without minding the repercussions.

In today’s society, children are recognized as those under the age of 18 years. This group does not have the capacity to function as adults. This is the major reason why the law has put in place special measures to protect the children from the impacts of their actions. The law seeks to reduce the impacts of the negative choices made by children by offering them a second chance to redeem themselves (ACLU, 2019). The Supreme Court in the United States ruled against the execution of children at the age of 15 years or below. Besides, 19 states already have laws in place to prohibit the execution of minors who commit crime t 17 years and below.

Therefore, it is evident that the execution of minors has been rendered illegal by the Supreme Court in the United States as well as various constituent states. This offers evidence that capital punishment for minors is against the system of justice. In 2004, the US Supreme Court whether executing minors amounted to a violation of the constitutional ban on unusual and cruel punishment.

The review by the Supreme Court was after the Supreme Court in Missouri overturned the death sentence of 17 years old named Christopher Simmons (ACLU, 2019). Although teens should be held accountable for their actions, the level of accountability should not be similar to that of adults. This is as a result of studies carried out by various groups of scholars concerning the development of a human brain.

In the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of Roper vs Simmons, the court based its decision on three different grounds. The first ground is that although the execution of minors had not been regarded as cruel some years back, things have changed today, making it be viewed as cruel and unusual (Montaldo, 2017). This ground is also based on the 8^th amendment, which speaks of the evolving standards of decency.

From the findings of the Supreme Court, the evolving standards of decency have indeed changed with time. The court observed that currently, there exists a national consensus that is opposed to capital punishment for minors.

The second ground that was applied by the Supreme Court was the provisions of the resolutions of the International Congress of Penal Law in China (Montaldo, 2017). The provisions of this law are that minors ought to be held less culpable for their actions and therefore, should not be subjected to capital punishment.

Research carried out by the Harvard Medical School, and the National Institute of Mental Health concluded that the pre-frontal and frontal lobes of the brain which are responsible for the regulation of impulse control and judgment are not well developed at the teenage age. Development for these parts of the brain does not take place until an individual is at the age gap of 18 to 22 years. Therefore, the findings of this study offer evidence that teenagers shall be significantly inclined to making unsound judgments, impulsivity, and are not much aware of the consequences of their actions.

Due to their immaturity, there is a high likelihood that the decisions made by minors are likely to be out of coercion from adults and other times, coercion from experienced criminals (Montaldo, 2017). The teens are also more likely to be exploited in the course of investigation concerning a criminal case. This is because, minors are likely to face intimidation from authorities, adults and other figures, making them be the most probable victims of forceful confession.

It is worth noting that minors are also least likely to utilize their rights in a criminal trial process such as the right to legal representation. Besides, the objectives of capital punishment are not likely to be attained in minors. There are other measures that could be applicable to minors and bring a positive change in their lives. This is especially through the use of rehabilitation of the minors.

Therefore, instead of subjecting the minors to capital punishment which seeks to punish the worst of the worst, it is important to apply other effective measures such as rehabilitation and victim-offender-mediation (Moster, 2016). This is especially after taking into consideration the emotional immaturity as well as the insufficient capacity of adolescents, making them unfit to be in the category of the ‘worst of the worst.’

The other reason why minors should not be subjected to capital punishment is that public opinion in many nations is increasingly against the execution of minors. Harris poll carried out in the United States in 2003 found out that 69% of those who took part in the poll were opposed to this practice (Moster, 2016). From the poll, only 22 per cent of the respondents supported the execution of the minors, while 5% of the respondents were uncertain.

In the international arena, the execution of minors is mostly considered anachronistic, inhumane and a practice that is against the conventional practice of justice. Execution of minors is against the rules of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Moster, 2016). Out of 123 countries where death penalties apply, only Iran and the United States allow for the execution of minors. Besides, the judiciary in Iran already started the process of raising the minimum age for capital punishment from 15 to 18 years in 2003.

The period between 1994 and 2000 was characterized by constitution amendments in nations such as China, Yemen, Zimbabwe and part of Pakistan to eliminate capital punishment on minors. This is because the practice had been generally viewed as uncivilized and barbaric.

The other reason why capital punishment should not be applied to minors is that they might grow up to become good people. As indicated previously, minors in their tender ages might make decisions based on other factors such as peer influence, coercion and other pressures in life such as poverty (Wiener, 2005). However, once their brains become fully developed, their reasoning is likely to change. Therefore, the minors previously convicted of major offences may grow to become law-abiding citizens.

Considering the fact that the minors might grow to become responsible citizens, it is evident that applying capital punishment on them denies them an opportunity to reform and live good lives. Therefore, the penalty imposed on minors should be limited to incarceration in a penitentiary.

The reason for supporting moderate punishment is because the minors have a basic understanding of the principles of morality and decency. Therefore, they deserve to be held accountable for their actions (Wiener, 2005). However, this should not be in the same measure as the adults because their levels of understanding are not similar. Therefore, the punishment for the minors ought not to be irrevocable. States should adopt other approaches to punishing the minors while at the same time offering them a chance to reform in future.

References

ACLU. (2019). Juveniles and the Death Penalty.

Montaldo, C. (2017). Arguments for and Against the Juvenile Death Penalty.

Moster, C. (2016). It’s Debatable: Death penalty for juveniles? Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Wiener, R. (2005). Outlawing the juvenile death penalty.