Capital Punishment for Offenses Committed by Youth: A Population-Based Analysis

• In Event: Capital Punishment: Execution Methods, Youthful Offenders, and Consequences

Abstract

Of the 824 people executed in jurisdictions across the United States from 2000 through 2015, 142 were youths aged 18, 19, or 20 years when they committed the capital offense for which they were executed. Using publicly available information, this paper considers the application of the death penalty to this population of youths. Despite neuroscientific evidence that brain maturation continues into the early-to-mid twenties in prefrontal regions affecting impulsivity, behavior, future planning, and processes likely relevant to determining criminal culpability, youth are not protected from the death penalty by jurisprudence as juveniles are by Roper v. Simmons (2005). Here we report on the more pronounced racial disparities in the application of the death penalty among youths relative to all those executed in the U.S. We also consider how legal factors and those pertaining to the specifics of each case of interpersonal violence influence the amount of time from arrest to conviction and conviction to execution. Policy implications are then discussed.

Authors

• Oren M. Gur, Pennsylvania State University, Abington College

• Hollis A. Whitson, Samler & Whitson, PC

• Eric J. Connolly, Pennsylvania State University, Abington

• Adnan Yarkhan, DuPage County Sheriff's Office

• Rufus James, Pennsylvania State University, Abington College

• Kimberly Pessoa, Pennsylvania State University, Abington College