the difference between 17 and 18

[richlevy]

Simply put, laws are designed to protect 'juveniles' even as it gives them fewer rights. Except for possibly military service, most states would prevent a 17-year-old from legally engaging in dangerous activity.

It is pretty obvious to anyone in the system, from prosecutors and defense attorneys to judges, that the system of capital punishment is broken. The latest figure I heard was 113 death row inmates exonerated in 30 years. Considering DNA evidence is a relatively new, many of these exonerations were done in time consuming reexaminations of crimes. I am sure that some kind of triage was done due to lack of resources, so there is no telling how many others on death row were wrongly convicted.

Now some governors, including GWB, have stated publicly that they believe that no innocent person has been executed. Considering these exonerations, it becomes clear that innocent individuals were sentenced to death row, so the idea that it is impossible or even unlikely that no innocent person was executed becomes less believable.

Taking into account the fact that the system may be flawed, and the legal concept that juveniles are entitled to extra protection under the law, it is not a stretch to say that it is more important to prevent a juvenile from being wrongly executed than an adult, since the adult at least had the right to vote for the government and laws which were being applied against him.

Are such legal technicalities arbitrary since they only take into account age and do not measure maturity? Yes, but that is the only system we have. The law does make exceptions, such as when children emancipate themselves from their parents, but this has to be requested by the juvenile. The system also can make exceptions by declaring adults mentally incompetant, which is why the court disallowed executing the mentally retarded.

Does this leave the law open to abuse? I have already heard prosecutors talking about the recruitment of juvenile assassins in the same way that 'baby bandits' were recruited for bank robberies. Of course, the adults doing this recruiting are engaging in criminal conspiracy and in the case of murder have a better chance of ending up on death row than the juveniles committing the acts.

I personally do not want to see a news story about some 17-year-old kid being executed and later found innocent. The truth is that there is no penalty for wrongful imprisonment and/or execution without proof of misconduct. In many cases, exonerated individuals can have decades of their lives taken away and end up with a bus ticket and a few hundred dollars. The state never admits it was wrong.