- Originally published in the Copley News Service March 30, 2005 Wednesday Copyright 2005 Copley News Service
By Marc H. Morial
The slow narrowing of the legal justification of the death penalty in America continues.
In
early March a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court barred the use of
capital punishment against convicted murderers who were older than 15
but younger than 18 at the time they committed their crimes.
The
ruling means the rescinding of the death sentence for 72 inmates in 12
states who were juveniles when they committed their crimes; the
harshest punishment they can now receive is life without the
possibility of parole. And it erases the stigma the United States
carried as one of only two nations in the world (the other being
Somalia) whose laws upheld capital punishment for juveniles.
The
Supreme Court in 1988 had barred the execution of convicted murderers
who killed when they were younger than 16, but a year later upheld
capital punishment for those who were 16 and 17 years old.
The
5-to-4 current decision involved a case from Missouri, Roper v.
Simmons, that resulted from a horrible crime. The defendant,
Christopher Simmons, 17 years old and a high school junior at the time,
burglarized a home with an accomplice, bound and gagged the wife and
mother who was home alone at the time, drove her to a nearby state
park, and threw her from a bridge spanning a river to drown in the
waters below. He was arrested within days, after bragging to friends
about the killing.
Few words exist which
can adequately describe and condemn the terrible act Christopher
Simmons committed or support the life sentence he deserves.
But
the National Urban League agrees with the Supreme Court's decision in
striking down capital punishment for juveniles. We agree with it in
overarching terms because we have always viewed the penalty as being
morally wrong and in practical terms, in the United States,
irredeemably tainted with racial and class bias.
The
Supreme Court majority of Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen G. Bryer,
David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointedly noted
"the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile
death penalty" and the fact that although 19 states in the United
States have laws permitting the execution of juveniles, only three -
Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia - had executed juveniles in the past
decade.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court's
majority said its ruling in this case was a logical step forward from
its 6-to-3 ruling three years ago prohibiting the execution of mentally
retarded offenders.
Drawing upon
psychological studies, they cited three particular reasons as bulwarks
of their stance: That those under 18 lack maturity and a developed
sense of responsibility, which "often result in impetuous and
ill-considered actions and decisions;" that they are "more vulnerable
or susceptible to negative influences, including peer pressure, and
thus have less control of their emotions and actions;" and that the
"traits of juveniles are more transitory, less fixed" than those of
adults.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor
dissented in bitter words from the majority ruling.
Experts
differ as to whether the series of recent rulings by the Supreme Court
that have exempted classes of those convicted of murder from being put
to death foreshadow the eventual abolition of the death penalty itself
or, instead, a "fine-tuning" of the law in order to solidify its
legality.
In our view, however, the
fine-tuning should inevitably lead to abolition - for moral reasons,
yes; and also because the very attempt to apply capital punishment is
untenable.
For example, we know the death
penalty is overwhelmingly disproportionately imposed upon the poor:
nearly 90 percent of those facing capital charges cannot afford their
own attorney.
And we know that race plays a stunning role in its imposition.
While
50 percent of all murder victims are white, 84 percent of the victims
in death-penalty cases are white. Since the death penalty was reimposed
in 1976, blacks, less than 13 percent of the population as a whole,
have made up 35 percent of those executed, represent 43 percent of
those now on the death rows nationwide and 67 percent of death-row
inmates in federal prisons. Since 1976, 11 whites have been executed
for killing blacks; 144 blacks have been executed for killing whites.
Finally,
the fatal "inevitability of caprice and mistake" in administering the
death penalty that the late constitutional scholar, Charles L. Black
Jr., pointed to has been underscored in recent years by the remarkable
fact that, as of today, 119 convicted men on death row have been
released from prison because, for some, their guilt at trial had not
been proved, and, for others, they were found to have been completely
innocent of the crime they were convicted of and sentenced to death for.
In
all instances, the developments that led to their freedom came years -
in some cases, decades - after they were to have been put to death.
The
death penalty is inherently unjust, inherently unfairly applied; and
the Supreme Court's decision barring it for juveniles is a step in the
right direction. This issue is a matter of life and death.
-
Marc H. Morial is president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League.