John Paul Stevens

“ The road we have traveled during the past four decades—in which thousands of juries have tried murder cases—leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty on a 15-year-old offender is now generally abhorrent to the conscience of the community. ”

“ Thus, the Court has already endorsed the proposition that less culpability should attach to a crime committed by a juvenile than to a comparable crime committed by an adult. [41] The basis for this conclusion is too obvious to require extended explanation. [42] Inexperience, less education, and less intelligence make the teenager less able to evaluate the consequences of his or her conduct while at the same time he or she is much more apt to be motivated by mere emotion or peer pressure than is an adult. ”

“ The assemblage of statutes in the text above, from both Oklahoma and other States, reflects this basic assumption that our society makes about children as a class; we assume that they do not yet act as adults do, and thus we act in their interest by restricting certain choices that we feel they are not yet ready to make with full benefit of the costs and benefits attending such decisions. ”

“ Other than the special certification procedure that was used to authorize petitioner's trial in this case "as an adult," apparently there are no Oklahoma statutes, either civil or criminal, that treat a person under 16 years of age as anything but a "child."
The line between childhood and adulthood is drawn in different ways by various States. There is, however, complete or near unanimity among all 50 States and the District of Columbia [16] in treating a person under 16 as a minor for several important purposes. In no State may a 15-year-old vote or serve on a jury. ”

“ Children, by definition, are not assumed to have the capacity to take care of themselves. They are assumed to be subject to the control of their parents, and if parental control falters, the State must play its part as parens patriae. ”

“ When we confine our attention to the 18 States that have expressly established a minimum age in their death penalty statutes, we find that all of them require that the defendant have attained at least the age of 16 at the time of the capital offense. ”

“ Crimes committed by youths may be just as harmful to victims as those committed by older persons, but they deserve less punishment because adolescents may have less capacity to control their conduct and to think in long-range terms than adults. Moreover, youth crime as such is not exclusively the offender's fault ”

“ It is only upon such a premise . . . that a State may deprive children of other rights—the right to marry, for example, or the right to vote—deprivations that would be constitutionally intolerable for adults") ; Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 603 (1979) ("Most children, even in adolescence, simply are not able to make sound judgments concerning many decisions") .
↑ Almost every State, and the Federal Government, has set a minimum age at which juveniles accused of committing serious crimes can be waived from juvenile court into criminal court. ”

“ It is, therefore, "nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering," Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S., at 592, and thus an unconstitutional punishment. [47]
VI Petitioner's counsel and various amici curiae have asked us to "draw a line" that would prohibit the execution of any person who was under the age of 18 at the time of the offense. Our task today, however, is to decide the case before us; we do so by concluding that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of a person who was under 16 years of age at the time of his or her offense. ”

“ As a matter of fact, many States in the Union have waiver ages below 16, including many of the States that have either abolished the death penalty or that have set an express minimum age for the death penalty at 16 or higher. ”

“ The reasons why juveniles are not trusted with the privileges and responsibilities of an adult also explain why their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult. [43]
[p836] "The death penalty is said to serve two principal social purposes: retribution and deterrence of capital crimes by prospective offenders." ”

“ It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage. Our history is replete with laws and judicial recognition that minors, especially in their earlier years, generally are less mature and responsible than adults. Particularly 'during the formative years of childhood and adolescence, minors often lack the experience, perspective, and judgment' expected of adults. Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 635 (1979) ." Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 115–116 (1982) (footnotes omitted) . ”

“ One might argue on the basis of this body of legislation that there is no chronological age at which the [p828] imposition of the death penalty is unconstitutional and that our current standards of decency would still tolerate the execution of 10-year-old children. ”

“ It is in this way that paternalism bears a beneficent face, paternalism in the sense of a caring, nurturing parent making decisions on behalf of a child who is not quite ready to take on the fully rational and considered task of shaping his or her own life. ”

“ III Justice Powell has repeatedly reminded us of the importance of "the experience of mankind, as well as the long history of our law, recognizing that there are differences which must be accommodated in determining the rights and duties of children as compared with those of adults. ”

“ Right to Drive Without Parental Consent Most States have various provisions regulating driving age, from learner's permits through driver's licenses. In all States but one, 15-year-olds either may not drive, or may drive only with parental consent or accompaniment. ”

“ Children, the insane, and those who are irreversibly ill with loss of brain function, for instance, all retain "rights," to be sure, but often such rights are only meaningful as they are exercised by agents acting with the best interests of their principals in mind. ”

“ V "Although the judgments of legislatures, juries, and prosecutors weigh heavily in the balance, it is for us ultimately to judge whether the Eighth Amendment permits imposition of the death penalty" on one such as petitioner who committed a heinous murder when he was only 15 years old. ”

“ In addition, the Senate recently passed a bill authorizing the death penalty for certain drug-related killings, with the caveat that " [a] sentence of death shall not be carried out upon a person who is under 18 years of age at the time the crime was committed." ”

“ Florida, 458 U.S., at 789-793.
↑ Our capital punishment jurisprudence has consistently recognized that contemporary standards, as reflected by the actions of legislatures and juries, provide an important measure of whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual." Part of the rationale for this index of constitutional value lies in the very language of the construed clause: whether an action is "unusual" depends, in common usage, upon the frequency of its occurrence or the magnitude of its acceptance. ”

“ Florida, 458 U.S., at 800-801 (death penalty for one who neither kills nor intends to kill "does not measurably contribute to the retributive end of ensuring that the criminal gets his just [p837] deserts") ; Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986) (unconstitutional to execute someone when he is insane, in large part because retributive value is so low) .
↑ Although we have held that a legislature may base a capital punishment scheme on the goal of deterrence, some Members of the Court have expressed doubts about whether fear of death actually deters crimes in certain instances. ”

“ Kansas (State v. Randol, 212 Kan. 461, 471, 513 P.2d 248, 256 (1973) , death penalty unconstitutional after Furman v. Georgia, supra; death penalty still on books, Kan. Stat. Ann. §§ 22-4001-22-4014 (1981) ; but see § 21-3401, first-degree murder is a Class A felony, and § 21-4501 (a) , sentence for a Class A felony does not include death penalty) ; Maine (1887 Maine Acts, ch. 133, an Act to abolish the death penalty; see Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17-A, §§ 1251, 1152 (1983 and Supp. 1987–1988) , authorized sentences for murder do not include death penalty) ”

“ Etiology and Treatment, 9 Adolescent Psychiatry 327, 329 (S. Feinstein, J. Looney, A. Schwartzberg, & A. Sorosky eds. 1981) (many adolescents possess a "profound conviction of their own omnipotence and immortality. Thus many adolescents may appear to be attempting suicide, but they do not really believe that death will occur") ”