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Information From:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/juvchar.html
JUVENILES AND THE DEATH PENALTY
Brief Facts and Figures
- There are currently 74 death row inmates (all male)
sentenced as juveniles constituting about 2% of the total death row
population. Case
Summaries for Current Death Row Inmates Under Juvenile Death Sentences
- 35% of these juveniles are in Texas
- 17 men have been executed
for crimes committed as juveniles since 1976.
- Jurisdictions
with an age minimum of 18 for capital punishment: CA, CO, CT, IL,KS, MD,
MT, NE, NJ, NM, NY*, OH, OR, TN, WA (by Court decision), and U.S. Other
states have either no minimum age or a minimum under 18. (*NY's law only
allows the death penalty for those "more than 18.")
- Characteristics of death row prisoners sentenced for
crimes committed as juveniles:
Current Death Row Inmates under Juvenile Death Sentences - from
ÒThe Juvenile
Death Penalty Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January
1973-June 2000." by Victor L. Streib Dean and Professor of Law June,
2000 (please see full-text
of report for more details and updated information).
As of June 2000, 74 persons were on death row under death sentences received
for juvenile crimes. These 74 condemned juveniles constituted about 2% of the
total death row population of about 3,700. Although all were age 16 or 17 at the
time of their crimes, their current ages range from 18 to 41. They were under
death sentences in 16 different states and had been on death row from a few
months to over twenty-one years. Texas has by far the largest death row for
juvenile offenders, now holding 26 (33%) of the national total of 74 juvenile
offenders.
All 74 juvenile offenders on death row were male and had been convicted and
sentenced to death for murder. The demographic characteristics of these
juveniles and their 101 victims are outlined in the table
below.
Three-quarters of these cases involved 17 year old offenders, and two-thirds
of them were minority offenders. In contrast, 80% of the victims were adults.
Two-thirds of the victims were white, and half were females. The paradigm case
of the juvenile offender on death row is that of the 17 year-old
African-American or Hispanic male whose victim is a white adult.
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
3,700 in June 2000. In contrast, the number of juvenile offenders under death
sentences has risen much more slowly. Thirty three juvenile offenders were under
death sentences at the close of 1983, compared to 74 juvenile offenders today (a
124% increase), but this number has fluctuated back and forth between these two
extremes during this decade. This comparatively constant death row population
for juvenile offenders results from the fact that the number of new death
sentences each year is roughly equal to the combination of death sentence
reversals plus executions for juvenile offenders.
Characteristics
of Offenders and Victims in Juvenile Death
Penalty Cases currently in force, June 2000
Offenders
| Age at crime |
Race |
| 16 = 20 (27%)
17 = 54 (73%)
|
A + 1 (1%)
B = 34 (46%)
L = 12 (16%)
W= 27 (36%)
|
Victims
| Age |
Race |
Sex |
| Under 18 = 18 (19%)
18 to 49 = 58 (62%)
50 & over = 17 (18%)
unknown = 8
|
A = 6 (7%)
B = 13 (15%)
L = 12 (14%)
W = 55 (64%)
unknown = 15
|
M = 44 (47%)
F = 50 (53%)
unknown =7
|
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