WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — Despite a dissent by the court’s four liberal justices who called the juvenile death penalty a shameful practice, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Monday an appeal challenging as unconstitutional executions of people who were younger than 18 when they committed their crimes.
And in a second death penalty case, the high court denied an appeal by a Florida convicted murderer who claimed the more than 27 years he has spent in prison since his initial sentence amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, wrote in dissent that the court should hear the juvenile death-penalty case, outlawing executions of those under the age of 18 when they commit their crime.
“The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society. We should put an end to this shameful practice,” Stevens said.
In 1988, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the executions of offenders age 15 or younger at the time of their crimes.
But the high court in 1989 ruled that executions of those who commit their crimes at age 16 or 17 do not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Stevens said that in the past 13 years, a national consensus has emerged that juvenile offenders should not be executed, and said the Supreme Court should revisit the issue.
The high court in June used a similar rationale, ruling by a 6-3 vote that a national consensus had emerged to declare unconstitutional executions of criminals who are mentally retarded.
Since 1989, five states have outlawed the execution of those under age 18, Stevens said.
Stevens said adolescents are more impulsive than adults.
“Neuroscientific evidence of the last few years has revealed that adolescent brains are not fully developed, which often leads to erratic behaviors and thought processes in that age group,” Stevens said.
Stevens also cited a poll taken in 2001 that found that a majority of Americans said the death penalty should not apply to juvenile offenders.
Currently, 38 states and the federal government have the death penalty. The federal government and 16 states have an age minimum of at least 18 for capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
It said five states have set age 17 as the minimum while the other 17 states use age 16 as the minimum age.
The case involved a petition of writ of habeas corpus by Kevin Nigel Stanford, who was 17 when he committed his murder. It was Stanford’s case, from Kentucky, that led to the Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling.
Stanford was convicted of killing a woman by shooting her point blank in the face and a second time in the head after raping her during a robbery of a gasoline station in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on Jan. 7, 1981.
The other case involved Charles Foster, whose execution has been delayed after he twice successfully challenged his sentencing proceedings. He was resentenced to death in 1993 for the 1975 murder of a 68-year-old Ohio tourist.
Breyer said in dissent that he would grant Foster’s appeal.
“Death row’s inevitable anxieties and uncertainties have been sharpened by the issuance of two death warrants and three judicial reprieves,” he said.
“If executed, Foster, now 55, will have been punished both by death and also by more than a generation spent in death row’s twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is both unusual and cruel,” Breyer said.
Justice Clarence Thomas replied to Breyer, saying Foster could have ended his “anxieties and uncertainties” by simply submitting to his execution. Thomas dismissed Foster’s claim as “meritless.”
