Keywords: History, court cases, right to appeal, writ of habeas corpus

The primary purpose of the juvenile justice system is hold the juvenile offenders accountable for delinquent acts while providing treatment, rehabilitative services, and programs designed to prevent future involvement in law violating behavior. The first juvenile court was established in 1899, in Chicago, IL. This was in response to the harsh treatment children received in the criminal justice system. This court recognized the developmental differences between the children and adults in the rehabilitation sense. During the recent period of increased violent crime, there has been a shift toward stronger policies and punishments. This shift included the waiver of more juveniles to the adult court system. This also led to the increasing number of juveniles committing capital offenses before the age of 18. These offenses carried the penalty of the death penalty or life without parole. "The use of the death penalty for crimes committed under the age of eighteen is prohibited under the international human rights standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the American Convention on Human Rights (www.amnesty-usa.org, 2002)."

"When the colony of Massachusetts executed sixteen-year-old Thomas Graunger in 1642 for the crime of bestiality, the tradition of executing children in this country was born. It continued over the years executing children of different ages for various crimes, the youngest child being only ten years old (Potter, 1999)." This marked the start of a new age in criminal justice.

It was not until 1944, when the question of morality arose about executing juveniles. This is when the state of North Carolina executed a 14-year-old black boy by the name of George Stinney. He was so small "that the guards had trouble strapping his tiny legs to the electric chair (Potter, 1999)."

The Supreme Court decided it’s first juvenile case in 1966. The case was Kent v. United States in 1966. This case limited the waiver discretion of juvenile courts. Before this case the discretion was broad and not consistent across the United States. Because of this, the legislature started to reform the process by standardizing the judicial decision-making. Kent held that juveniles were entitled to a hearing, representation by a counsel, access to information upon which the waiver decision was based, and a statement of reasons justifying the waiver decision. The court also laid out a number of factors in which the juvenile judge must consider in making the waiver decision (Evans, 1992), including:

Eddings was sixteen years old when murdered a highway patrol officer. The court vacated the juvenile’s death sentence because the trial court failed to consider additional mitigating circumstances. Eddings was important, however, because, the court held that the chronological age of a minor is a relevant factor that must be considered at sentencing.

Thompson was fifteen when he was tried and convicted as an adult of first-degree murder for the murder of his former brother-in-law, and sentenced to death. When Thompson appealed, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma affirmed. The Supreme Court granted Thompson certiorari. The question that was presented in this case was "Would the execution of a fifteen year old violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments"? The conclusion in this case was "yes. After noting that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments" applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held that the execution of a person under the age of sixteen was unconstitutional. In noting the uniform ban among all relevant state statutes under the age of sixteen, the Court explained that such an act would violate the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. The case was reversed and remanded (oyez.nwu, 2002)."

The petitioner in this case was approximately seventeen years and four months old at the time that he committed a murder Kentucky. He was also convicted of sodomy, robbery, and the receipt of stolen property. "A juvenile court, after conducting hearings, transferred him for trial as an adult under a state statute permitting such action as offenders who are either charged with a Class A felony or capital crime or who are over the age of sixteen and charged with a felony (findlaw.com, 2002)." Stanford was convicted and sentenced to death. Stanford appealed his case and his case and his case was consolidated with Wilkins v. Missouri. Wilkins was a sixteen year and six months old, who was appealing his death sentence for a murder that he had been convicted of in Missouri. "Both Stanford and Wilkins alleged that the imposition of the death penalty on offenders as young as themselves violated their constitutional rights (oyez.nwu, 2002)." The question presented in this case dealt with "Does the imposition of death sentence on convicted capital offenders below the age of eighteen years old, violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment? The conclusion was "No. In a 5-4 decision the Court held that in weighing whether the imposition of capital punishments on offenders below the age of eighteen is cruel and unusual, it is necessary to look at the given society’s evolving decency standards. With respect to American society, there is no national consensus regarding the imposition of capital punishment on seventeen or sixteen year old individual. Of the thirty-seven states that permit capital punishment, twelve prohibit the death penalty for offenders below the age of seventeen while fifteen states prohibit capital punishment for sixteen year olds. Moreover the discrepancies in national opinion polls, interest group views, and professional association studies, all indicate a lack of unanimity concerning the acceptability of death sentencing for such relatively young offenders. Thus, the decision whether to subject seventeen or sixteen year olds to capital punishment must be made locally by the states and cannot be categorically pronounced as cruel and unusual punishment at this time (oyez.nwu, 2002)."

Juveniles may want to appeal their decision, regardless on the sentence that was imposed. The juvenile court statutes usually restrict appeals to cases where juveniles seek review for a final order. "A final order is one that ends the litigation between the two parties by determining all their rights and disposing of all their issues (Siegel, Welsh, Senna &, 2003, p.444)." The appellate process gives the juvenile the opportunity to bring its case before a review court after it has been heard in a family court. The constitution does not guarantee the right for the juvenile case to be furnished with an appeal. It is all based on the jurisdiction in which the case was held. Most states do provide the juveniles with some meted of statutory appeals, however.

Appealing cases was not always a part of the juvenile process. " In the Gault case of 1967, the Court refused to review the Arizona juvenile court code, which provided no appellate review in juvenile matters (Siegel, Welsh, Senna &, 2003, p. 445)." Today, however, most jurisdictions provide the child the right to appeal, and they also provide them with counsel, and they secure transcripts and records, which is very important in the success of the appeals process.

Since each state has it’s own way of defining an appeal, each jurisdiction chooses it’s own method. There are two basic methods in which the appellate process for a juvenile can be carried out. The first method is direct appeal. During a direct appeal, based on the evidence that was presented in the first trial, the Court makes that the law and the judgment of the law was interpreted correctly. The second kind of appeal deals with the collateral attack of the case. This attack uses writs to challenge the lower-court decision instead of establishing the error that the lower-courts made in making their decision. The writ that is used the most in this kind of appeal is called the writ of habeas corpus. "The writ of habeas corpus is a judicial order requesting that a person detaining another produce the body of the prisoner and give reasons for his or her capture and detention (Siegel, Welsh, Senna &, 2003, p.445)." In other words, this writ establishes if the person being detained had a valid reason for being detained.

In a report that was released on September 25, 2002 titled "Indecent and internationally illegal: The death penalty against child offenders," Amnesty International examines the death penalty in the United States. This report looks at the Atkins v. Virginia decision. This decision was the one that exempts prisoners with mental retardations from being executed. It tries to apply the same standard to juvenile offenders (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, 2002).

During a recent panel discussion, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wiley Branton, Jr. also compared the execution of mental retarded offenders to juvenile offenders. The judge made a comment in this discussion among the panel members that brought out a lot of discussion matters. When he said, "To me, there is not a whole of difference between a mentally incompetent adult and a child, (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, 2002)" he insinuated that he agreed with the Atkins v. Virginia decision. Dr. Chris Lamps, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, made a statement about adolescence brains not having the capacity to contemplate consequences, as do most adults. He noted that "they thought with their emotions and the risk of it is not a big part of making emotional decisions (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, 2002)."

For the first time in 40 years, a sixteen-year-old offender was executed in the United States. Sean Sellers was executed in Oklahoma on February 4, 1999. A lot of people spoke out against this execution. This included people such as Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, which is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the American Bar Association and Bianca Jagger. The reason that this was such a big issue is because Sellers had been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. The Court of Appeals stated that Sellers might be "factually innocent of the murders because of his illness, but innocence alone is not sufficient to grant federal relief (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, 2002)."

Individuals who were juveniles at the time they committed a capital offense continue to be sentenced to death in the United States. The total number of persons under death sentences has increased by 206% in the past fifteen years, reflecting a steady rise from 1,209 in 1983 to about 3,701 in the 2002. However, the number of juvenile offenders under death penalty has risen much slowly. "There are currently eighty-three inmates (all males who have been convicted for murder) sentenced as juveniles constituting about 2.24% of the total death row population (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, 2002)." Although the number of juveniles affected by the death penalty is small, these offenders are the focal point for often highly politicized debates about the constitutionality of the death penalty, public safety, alternatives available to judges and juries in determining the fates of these youths, and, most crucial, the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system in safeguarding the due process rights of youth.

Evan, K.L. (1992). "Trying juveniles as adults: Is the short gain of retribution outweighed by the long-term effects of society?" Mississippi Law Journal.

Potter, Karen. (1999). "The Death Penalty Speech." Retrieved on 10/02/2002. Available: http://policestudies.eku.edu/kpotter/speech3htm

Siegel, Larry J., Welsh, Brandon C., Senna Joseph J. &. (2003). Juvenile Delinquency. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning Incorporated.

(2002, October). "Death Penalty." Retrieved on 10/02/2002. Available: 
http://amnesty-usa.org/abolishjuvexec.html

(2002, November). "Execution of Juvenile Offenders." Retrieved on 11/13/2002. Available: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/juvexec.html

(2002, November). "Juveniles and the Death Penalty." Retrieved on 11/13/2002. Available: http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/juvchar.html

(2002, November). "Stanford v. Kentucky." Retrieved on 11/13/2002. Available: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase

(2002, November). "Stanford v. Kentucky (abstract)." Retrieved on 11/18/2002.  Available: www.oyez.nwu.edu/cases/cases.cgi?command=show&case-id=770&page=abstract

2002, November). "Thompson v. Oklahoma." Retrieved on 11/13/2002.  Available: htttp://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase

(2002, November). "Thompson v. Oklahoma (abstract)." Retrieved on 11/13/2002 http://oyez.nwu.edu/cases/cases.cgi?command=showandcase-id=958&page=abstract

This page available at: