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Children and the Death Penalty
Today it is very difficult to turn on the TV or pick- up a newspaper without hearing about someone being killed or someone on trial for killing. ... Since 1992, forty-five states have passed or amended legislation making it easier to prosecute juveniles as adults (Children’s Rights; Speaking for Children. ... Not only are more children being transferred out of the juvenile system and into the adult criminal system, but also today, more juveniles are receiving the ultimate sanction—the death penalty. In January 2000 three juvenile offenders were put to death. As of October 2000, seventy-four more awaited their fate on death row (Msn:Death Penalty Info Center; p. ... Explaining this increase in juvenile death sentences and executions, Texas juvenile delinquency expert Billy Bramlett noted that death sentences suit the citizenry “fed up with the expense of crime, the fear of crime, the devastation of crime and just the senselessness of crime”(Robert Kline; Newsweek; 2002). ... Indeed, the majority of Americans continue to support the death penalty—even as applied to children. ... The doctrine was adopted from the English tradition of common law, which encouraged all adjudications of juveniles to be in the child’s best interest. ...
There are 20 states allow the execution of juveniles, and in 16 states the minimum age requirement for death is set at 16 years old. ... Since 1608 there have been 20, 0000 executions, and since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, the United States has executed a total of 22 juvenile offenders, 10 of those have occurred during the 1990’s. Only four other countries are known to have executed juveniles during this decade. They are: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen (Msn:Death Penalty Info Center; p. ... The combined effect of the opinions by Justice Stevens and Justice OConnor in Thompson is to hold that no state without a minimum age line in their death penalty statute can go below age 16 without violating Thompson, and in fact no state with a minimum age line in its death penalty statute uses an age less than sixteen.
Approximate Word count = 1629
Approximate Pages = 6.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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