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1 results

  • 11 - Science and the juvenile death penalty

  • Edited by Carol L. Kessler, Columbia University, New York, Louis James Kraus, Rush University, Chicago
  • Book:
    The Mental Health Needs of Young Offenders
    Published online:
    11 August 2009
    Print publication:
    06 September 2007, pp 241-254

  • Summary

    The Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment analysis in death penalty cases is based on two principles. The first is whether "standards of decency" have evolved to the point where there is now national consensus that a particular form of punishment has become cruel and unusual. A second issue the Court has to address is whether the constitutionally legitimate purposes of the death penalty are applicable to this particular group of offenders. In coming to a conclusion regarding the level of culpability, and therefore the appropriate punishment, for 16- and 17-year-old offenders, the Court had to look outside the law and to science. Pivotal to the ultimate outcome in Roper v. Simmons was the involvement of the sciences and their instruction to the public, policy makers, and law makers prior to the Court taking up the case. Later, the Court considered the research and conclusions of the behavioral, medical, and neurological sciences.