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| High court urged to abolish execution of juveniles |
| By Washington Post |
| Published: 07/20/2004 |
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A broad array of individuals and groups ranging from Jimmy Carter to Mikhail Gorbachev and the American Medical Association to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the Supreme Court on Monday to declare that it is unconstitutional to execute people for crimes they committed before turning 18. The United States is one of five countries that execute juvenile offenders, a practice that shocks European allies and violates "minimum standards of decency shared by virtually every nation in the world," nine eminent former U.S. diplomats told the court in one of 15 briefs filed Monday. In 2002 the court, invoking the concept of "evolving standards of decency," abolished capital punishment for mentally retarded offenders. The briefs filed Monday are part of a campaign by death-penalty opponents to persuade the court to apply similar reasoning in regard to juveniles. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the fall in the case of Christopher Simmons, now 27, who was sentenced to death row for the 1993 drowning in Missouri of Shirley Crook, 46. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in January to hear the case, which could lead to a reversal of a 1989 decision in which the court upheld the death penalty for crimes committed by 16- and 17-year-olds. Since 1988, the court has barred execution of those 15 and younger. In the briefs filed Monday, 48 nations, 18 Nobel Peace prize winners, 28 U.S. religious groups and a host of medical, legal and child advocacy groups argued against executing juvenile offenders. The retired diplomats wrote that in the past four years only five countries -- China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Pakistan and the United States -- have executed juvenile offenders. "In no other area of human rights does the United States consider these nations to be our equals," the filing said. |
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