Top court rejects juvenile death penalty

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, concluding that both the United States and the world have turned against the death penalty for youthful offenders, ruled Tuesday that the Constitution categorically bars capital punishment for crimes committed before the age of 18.

The 5-to-4 decision, which upheld a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court, will move 72 people off death row in 12 states. It represented an about-face for a court that only 16 years ago had rejected the argument that the execution of those who kill at the age of 16 or 17 violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments."

Nineteen states, including Utah, allow executions for people under age 18.

Utah does not have any juveniles on death row, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford.

Nine men in Utah are under death sentences, although their sentences are being appealed. A 10th man, Elroy Tillman, is housed on death row at the prison but technically does not have a death sentence in place. He had received a death sentence, but it was overturned by a judge, and now that judge's ruling is on appeal.

The other men on Utah's death row are Ronnie Lee Gardner, Doug Stewart Carter, Ralph LeRoy Menzies, Michael Anthony Archuleta, Von Lester Taylor, Ron Lafferty, Doug Lovell, Troy Michael Kell and Taberon Honie.

Writing for the court on Tuesday, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who voted with the majority 16 years ago, said the new decision was necessary to keep pace with the "evolving standards of decency" that for the last 50 years have shaped the Supreme Court's view of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishments.

Justice Kennedy said that not only did 30 states — five more than 16 years ago — reject the death penalty for juveniles, but that "it is fair to say that the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty." (The Missouri Supreme Court decision that the justices upheld on Tuesday meant that there were 31 states that reject the death penalty for juveniles).

Since 1990, he noted, only seven countries other than the United States have executed people for crimes they committed as juveniles, and all seven — Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, China and the Democratic Republic of Congo — have now disavowed the practice.

There have been 19 such executions in the United States since 1990, most recently in 2003. Once the Supreme Court agreed in January of last year to decide the issue, all executions that might be affected by the eventual decision were put on hold.