1
oo Immature for the Death Penalty?
Just after 2 a.m. on Sept. 9, 1993 Christopher Simmons, 17, and Charles
Benjamin, 15, broke into a trailer south of Fenton, Mo., just outside St. Louis.
They woke Shirley Ann Crook, a 46-year-old truck driver who was inside, and
proceeded to tie her up and cover her eyes and mouth with silver dust tape.
They then put her up in the back of the minivan, drove her to a railroad bridge
and pushed her into the river below, where her body was found the next day.
Simmons and Benjamin later confessed to the abduction and murder, which
had netted them $6. Police called it "a cheap price for life".
The two were convicted. Benjamin was sentenced to life in prison, and Simmons was given the death penalty The Missouri Supreme Court overturned Simmons's sentence last year, and the case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently heard arguments on the constitutionality of the death penalty for those who are 16 or 17 when they commit their crimes.The court has already ruled against execution of anyone under 16.
Unlike other death-penalty cases, this one has drawn intense interest from the American Medical Association, the nation's psychiatrists and psychologists and other health and research groups. They've filed briefs with the court making a novel scientific argument - that juveniles should not be executed because their brains are still developing. In other words, teenagers cannot be held fully responsible for their actions because all the wiring to allow adult decision-making isn't completed yet. As Stephen K. Harper, a professor of juvenile justice at the University of Miami School of Law, puts it, "Adolescents are far less culpable than we know."
The New York Times Magazine, by Paul Raeburn, 17.10.2004
2
We Were Victims Too
As part of our debate on the reform of the criminal justice system, Reg Dudley, who was convicted in 1977 of an horrific double murder, urges caution on the Government in its drive to secure more convictions.
This week, more than 25 years after my friend Bob Maynard and I were sent to prison for two murders we didn't commit, evidence of severe irregularities in the original investigation will finally be heard by the Court of Appeal. New expert testimony suggests that the main planks of the case against us, our supposed 'confessions', were fabricated as we have claimed all along. The Crown's star witness has also made a statement admitting perjury. In June 1992, The Observer published an investigation into our case. More than a decade later, it looks as if the courts are finally catching up.
I am now 77. My marriage broke up long ago. I missed my children flourishing into adulthood; the childhoods of my grandchildren. I had to live with the label of being one of the notorious 'torso murderers', who had shot, decapitated and dismembered one man, and then brutally disposed of a second. Although the trial judge recommended we serve 15 years, Bob and I were 'knocked back' time and again by the Parole Board and Home Secretary because we would not admit our guilt. Before I finally came out in 1998,1 had done the rounds of Britain's toughest jails: Dartmoor, Gartree, the Scrubs.
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So forgive me if I sound cynical. When I hear politicians and police officers claiming that our criminal justice system needs reforming to make it easier to get convictions, that guilty men are going free and that victims are unprotected, I feel a need to interrupt. Hold on. Be careful. Bob and I are victims too.
The Observer, July 7, 2002
3
An End to Killing Kids
America's Supreme Court has abolished the death penalty for those under 18 when they committed their crimes. It is just another nibble at the edge of still-popular capital punishment but does it show that America can sometimes be swayed by world opinion?
Which country seems the odd one out in this list: China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United States? These eight countries are the only ones in the world that have executed children under 18 since 1990. Now, at last, the world's self-proclaimed beacon of freedom will be able to take itself off the list. On Tuesday March 1st, America's Supreme Court ruled, by five votes to four, that putting to death those who were minors at the time of their crimes is unconstitutional. The move reprieves 72 juvenile offenders on death row.
Of course, the death penalty will remain in place for convicted murderers in America. Indeed, it remains popular two-thirds of Americans support it (though this number drops to half when life imprisonment without parole is offered as an alternative). Despite this week's ruling, America is clearly still out of step with most of the countries it considers its friends.
More than half of the world's countries have either abolished the death penalty for normal crimes or have imposed moratoriums, according to Amnesty International, a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against capital punishment. These include all but two countries in Europe and Central Asia (Belarus and Uzbekistan), as well as both of America's neighbours, Canada and Mexico, and like-minded countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Among large democracies, only India, South Korea and Japan still practise capital punishment. But it is rare in those places.
According to Amnesty, in 2003, 84% of the world's known executions took place in just four countries: China, Iran, Vietnam and America.
The Economist, March 2 nd 2005
