[20050309]RS21969_死刑和青少年.pdf

1 487 U.S. 815 (1988).2 492 U.S. 361 (1989).Congressional Research Service The Library of CongressCRS Report for CongressReceived through the CRS WebOrder Code RS21969Updated March 9, 2005Capital Punishment and Juvenilesname redactedLegislative AttorneyAmerican Law DivisionSummaryIn Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. _ (2005), the United States Supreme Court heldthat the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty onoffenders who were under the age of 18 at the time of the offense. In deciding Roper,the Court was not writing on a clean slate. In 1988, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S.815 (1988), the Court struck down the death penalty for juvenile offenders under the ageof 16. The Court last reviewed the issue in 1989, when its decision in Stanford v.Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989) set the minimum eligibility age for the death penalty at16, finding that there was not a national consensus against the execution of those aged16 or 17 at the time of the offense. Since 1989, eight states have established a minimumage of 18, raising the total number of states that ban juvenile executions to 30. TheRoper Court found that the “evolving standards of decency,” which led the