Will America defend its right to execute children?

December 20, 2006 at 09:07:28

Will America defend its right to execute children?

by Anai Rhoads Ford

The United States Supreme Court has used the U.S. Constitution as a means to justify outdated execution laws. Although the document precludes capital punishment for crimes committed by persons of age fifteen or younger, it makes no exceptions for criminals once they have reached their sixteenth year.

While the established legal age in America is eighteen, there exists a double standard when it comes to dealing with children who have committed crimes. Not even old enough to vote, sign contracts or even purchase cigarettes, offenders are thrown into a legal system that allows them to be punished by death years down the road for acts committed before being considered fully responsible for their own actions.

Behind the developing world
International rulings dictate that individuals should not be executed below the age of eighteen. Yemen and Zimbabwe updated national laws to comply in 1994, as did China in 1997 and Pakistan in 2000. Iran updated its old regulations to adhere to international law some time in 2004. China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United States of America are the only countries to have in the past violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Of these eight countries spotlighted for having taken part in executions of persons who had committed crimes as minors, the United States is the only nation that openly agrees with this method of correction and claims the right to continue.

There have been a total of 34 juvenile executions performed in the above mentioned countries since 1990, and nineteen of the thirty-four were in the United States. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) 160 children have been sentenced to death in the U.S. since 1973 and records have shown that government orders for gassing, electrocution, and lethal injection of child offenders doubled in the last decade.

Since 1976 more than six out of every ten persons sentenced to death during their nonage have been of either African-American or Latino descent and currently two out of every three juvenile offenders sentenced to death row are minorities.

2 International Law
Article 6 (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) prohibits the death sentence for "crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

"Yet in this same Article the United States reserves the "right, subject to its constitutional constraints to impose capital punishment on any person, including such punishment for crimes committed by persons below 18 years of age."

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) unambiguously prohibits the execution of juvenile offenders under Article 37 (a):

"No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age."

It also states that parties must recognise that every child has the inherent right to life. A total of 191 nations have signed and enacted this treaty not including the United States.

Not even war can justify elbowroom for execution of minors according to Article 68 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

More executions scheduled

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) was pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Monday to review laws concerning execution of juveniles within the year. "No civilised society executes juvenile offenders," said Brian Roberts, NCADP's executive director.

The state of Texas is scheduled to execute Edward Capetillo on March 30; Efrain Perez on June 23; and Raul Villarreal on June 24. Each person was 17 years old when accused of murder. Texas has been responsible for six of the past seven juvenile offender executions.

Meanwhile over 105 countries have stopped using capital punishment altogether. The Supreme Court in mid-2003 came within one vote of endorsing a ban on all executions for crimes committed at age seventeen or younger.

Further reading: Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988): execution of offenders aged 15 or younger declared unconstitutional. NCADP: Race Is A Decisive Factor In Juvenile Death Sentences Amnesty International Fact Sheet

www.anairhoads.org

Anai Rhoads (Ford) is a political researcher and Human Rights journalist originally from Athens, Greece. Her work has been featured on several web based newspapers and media outlets, which include ZMagazine, InfoShop.com, and Media Monitors. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief for AnaiRhoads.org. Anai is an advocate of vaccine reform, animal and human rights. She currently resides on the east coast with her husband, Chris Rhoads Ford and their daughter, Sian.

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