This paper will discuss whether or not teenagers should be sentenced to death. The paper will look at three aspects of the death penalty: the legal issues, the public opinion issues, and the moral issues. Each of these aspects will be considered in turn, after a brief description of the history of the death penalty as it has been applied to juveniles.
The death penalty has existed throughout American history and its continued use indicates that it has been accepted as a means of punishment for individuals convicted of the most serious crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court as a whole has never questioned its existence as a legitimate form of punishment. Although the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court has never considered the death penalty to be cruel and unusual. Indeed, few American courts have considered the death penalty to be cruel and unusual and no statute authorizing the death penalty has been struck down on the basis that the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual.
Historically, juveniles were not executed frequently in the American justice system. While many were sentenced to die, many fewer were actually executed. The first execution of a minor on American soil occurred in 1642 in Plymouth Colony. The youngest person to be executed was ten years old, but the vast majority were at least fifteen years old at the time they committed their capital crimes. Between 1900 and 1972, when the Supreme Court held capital punishment to be unconstitutional as it was applied, 175 minors were executed. Between 1976, when the Court ruled that the death penalty was not per se unconstitutional, and 1992, 110 minors were sentenced to death.
The question confronted in this paper is whether the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment when it is inflicted upon minors. This question can be answered in a straightforward fashion by lookin...