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(This article has been archived as having historical interest, even though the laws have been changed regarding the death penalty for juveniles.)

EXECUTION FOR CRIMES BY MINORS
--- to be challenged in South Dakota Legislature

At present, South Dakota law permits execution of a person for crimecommitted under the age of 18. A bill will be introduced in South Dakota's 2003 Legislature to prohibit execution for crimes by minors, leaving life without parole as the maximum sentence for such offense.

The whole world acknowledges that juveniles are capable of appalling and heinous crime, also that society's interest is damaged if juvenile criminals are not held accountable. But the rest of the world parts ways with the United States over execution for juvenile crime. The ultimate penalty for juvenile crime is banned in three widely ratified international legal instruments -- the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights.

The United States has actually signed all three, and there is no death penalty for juvenile crime on the federal level. However, the federal government maintains that individual states have a sovereign right to retain it; and 22 states do so. Thus, the U.S. is one of only three nations remaining where execution for juvenile crime is in recent practice.

However, the other two -- Republic of Congo and Iran -- have both agreed to do away with it. Asserting a right to execute for juvenile crime is considered barbaric in international law terms, and the American Bar Association strongly opposes it.

Historically, two thirds of executions for crimes by minors have been of people of color. . Two thirds of juvenile offenders now on death row are people of color; with more than 85% in the South and more than half in just two states, Texas and Alabama. None are wealthy or even middle class. It would seem that race, social status, and arbitrary accident of geography weigh heavily in imposition of death penalty for juvenile crime.

In addition, emerging findings in psychiatric practice and brain physiology yield humane reasons to oppose this ultimate sanction for young offenders. Psychiatrists report greater capacity for intervention strategies to succeed with juvenile offenders than with adults. Furthermore, advanced imaging studies demonstrate that brain areas regulating self control, emotions, and judgment are commonly not fully developed in minors. Consequently, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the National Mental Health Association, and the American Psychiatric Association all strongly oppose death penalty for juvenile crime.

If the bill succeeds in the 2003 Legislature, South Dakota will join the majority of states -- currently at 28 -- as well as the District of Columbia and the federal government, which all prohibit execution for crimes by juveniles.  The framework of justice in our state will then be purged of an institution which has proved in practice to be overwhelmingly discriminatory and arbitrary, and which the rest of the world regards as barbaric and inhumane.