When George Stinney was strapped into the electric chair 60 years
ago, the Clarendon County teenager was so small his feet didn’t touch
the floor. A mask covering his face slipped off after the first jolt of
electricity.
The 14-year-old, convicted of murdering two girls, became the
youngest person to be legally executed in the nation in the 20th
century. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has banned executions of
defendants who were younger than 16 at the time of their crimes.
Now, the high court is considering raising the age limit to 18 in one
of the most important cases to be decided this year. The nine-member
court heard arguments on the case in October; a ruling is expected soon.
If the court sets the minimum age limit at 18, three of the 71
inmates on South Carolina’s Death Row would be spared the state’s
ultimate punishment. Another who had been sentenced to death has been
granted a resentencing hearing, though he remains on Death Row.
As of Sept. 30, 72 inmates on Death Row in 12 states, including South
Carolina, were sent there for crimes they committed as juveniles,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a research
organization in Washington, D.C. That represents about 2 percent of the
total Death Row population.
Since the death penalty was restored in 1976, 22 inmates who were 16
or 17 at the time of their crimes have been executed, including one in
South Carolina.
Families of murder victims are outraged that the age limit could be
raised to 18.
“Does that mean that if you’re 17 years 11 months and X-days old,
you’re good, and when you go to bed that night and you become 18, you
become bad? said Kathy Smith Carpenter of Fountain Inn.
Her brother, Jerry Smith, 57, was gunned down in 2000 outside a
family-owned convenience store in Spartanburg County. Eric Dale Morgan
was 17 at the time of the killing; he was convicted in March and
sentenced to death.
The three other S.C. Death Row inmates were 16 at the time of their
crimes. Nationally, more than 80 percent of the 72 Death Row inmates in
question were 17, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Most of the inmates are from Texas and Southeastern states. Zoe
Sanders Nettles, chairperson of South Carolinians for Alternatives to
the Execution of Children, attributes that statistic in part to the
South’s history of “bloodlust.”
“We don’t do that much for children in South Carolina,” the
Columbia lawyer said. “The least we shouldn’t do is kill them.”
LONG DELAYS
Allen Powers, an uncle of Ted Benjamin “Benji” Powers, sentenced
to death in 1996 for stabbing a 68-year-old Gaston man to death in the
victim’s home, doesn’t believe his nephew is a killer. The Gilbert
man also doesn’t think defendants convicted of killing when they were
teenagers deserve the death penalty.
“Most of what they do starts out as mischief, and it ends up a
terrible, unplanned incident,” said Powers, a former Richland County
sheriff’s deputy.
Powers claims longtime solicitor Donnie Myers deliberately waited
years before trying his nephew — 16 at the time his victim was killed
— to make him look older to jurors. Ted Powers was tried five years
after his arrest.
“They wouldn’t have seen a child; they would have seen a man,”
Powers said.
Myers, who has won more death penalty convictions than any other
state prosecutor, denies the allegation.
“I don’t care whether they look old or not,” he said. “The
policy is to try to get to them as quickly as I can.”
Myers said he couldn’t remember why it took so long to try Powers.
He noted that trials often are delayed at the request of defense
lawyers. A review by The State of 23 capital murder cases handled by
Myers show that he tried some defendants younger than age 20 in less
than two years from their arrest; others took longer.
Calen Radwill is in the latter group. More than nine years after his
arrest on charges that he stabbed a 15-year-old boy to death, Radwill,
who was 17 at the time, is still waiting for a trial. Now 26, Radwill
learned in 2002 that Myers’ office was seeking the death penalty
against him.
Lawyers not connected with the case say it might be the oldest
pending capital murder case in South Carolina. A court order prevents
Myers and other parties from discussing the case.
MISSOURI CASE
In the case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, the state of
Missouri wants the high court to overturn a ruling by its state supreme
court that said executing a 17-year-old would be cruel and unusual
punishment.
Christopher Simmons was 17 when he and a 15-year-old friend kidnapped
a woman from her St. Louis area home, drove her to a railroad bridge
over a nearby river, “hog-tied” her with electrical wire, wrapped
her face with duct tape, then threw her to her death in the river,
authorities said.
Simmons assured his friends that their status as juveniles would
allow them to “get away with it,” the state said in legal papers.
In Simmons’ defense, his lawyers are contending that recent
scientific research has shown that the section of the brain that
controls “mature decision-making” is not fully developed in 16- and
17-year-olds.
“One of their hallmark traits is that they are a work in
progress,” said John Blume, an appellate lawyer for Herman Hughes, on
Death Row for killing a Calhoun County video poker worker in 1994 when
Hughes was 16.
“The super-mature 17-year-old criminal is sort of a myth,” said
Blume.
The Spartanburg County solicitor who tried Eric Morgan, disagrees.
“There are 17-year-olds who act like 13-year-olds, and there are
17-year-olds who act like 30-year-olds,” Trey Gowdy said.
Laura Hudson, a longtime victim advocate with the S.C. Victim
Assistance Network, said she believes teenagers are more mature —
physically and emotionally — than years ago.
“I have met 15- and 16-year-old boys who are 6 foot 3 and extremely
knowledgeable,” she said. “Our world is just so much different
now.”
ADULT CRIME, ADULT TIME?
The U.S. is the only country in the world other than Somalia to
refuse to ratify a 1989 United Nations treaty banning capital punishment
for those under 18, Simmons’ lawyers said in court papers.
South Carolina is among 20 states that allow the death penalty for
defendants who committed murder when they were 16 or 17; 18 other states
set the minimum age limit at 18, according to Simmons’ legal briefs.
Georgia and North Carolina have set the limit at 17 for most cases.
An unsuccessful bill in the S.C. Legislature in 2001 would have done the
same.
Zoe Sanders Nettles, whose group South Carolinians for Alternatives
to the Execution of Children pushed for the bill, said recently the
minimum age limit should be raised to 18.
But S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster said any person who
“commits an adult crime deserves an adult penalty.”
McMaster said a South Carolina defendant cannot be sentenced to death
without first being found guilty in a separate trial. In the penalty
phase, jurors must find at least one “aggravating factor” before
imposing the death penalty, and even if they do so, they are not
required to give it. And judges can throw out death sentences under
certain circumstances, he said.
But too often, being poor and black is a ticket to Death Row, said
Julia Sibley-Jones, associate director of the S.C. Christian Action
Council.
“A moratorium (on the death penalty) is needed because it is not
fairly or impartially administered at this time,” she said.
Nearly half of S.C. Death Row population and about 70 of the overall
state prison population is black, Department of Corrections records
show. The state’s black population is about 30 percent.ANOTHER LEGAL
TWIST
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 suspended the death penalty
nationwide, ruling that it had been applied arbitrarily. Since it was
restored in 1976, only one inmate who was younger than 18 at the time of
his crime has been executed in South Carolina.
James Terry Roach, executed in 1986, was 17 when he shot two Columbia
teenagers to death in 1977.
Anti-death penalty advocates said Roach shouldn’t have been
executed, contending he was mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court in
2002 banned executions of mentally retarded inmates.
Ten of the 71 Death Row inmates nationwide who committed their crimes
as teenagers have asserted they are mentally retarded, including Powers
and Hughes, said Teresa Norris, a lawyer with the Center for Capital
Litigation in Columbia. But no state court has yet made that
determination for any of the inmates, she said.
Hughes’ appellate lawyer, Blume, said a hearing for his client
likely won’t be held until the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the age
issue.
Blume predicts the high court likely will raise the age limit to 18,
with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor casting the deciding vote in a
probable 5-4 ruling.
Kathy Smith Carpenter hopes for the sake of other victim’s families
that doesn’t happen.
“Does evil have an age?” she said. “If you should answer
‘yes’ to that question, would you want to exchange your life with
any of those innocent victims’ lives?”
Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484 or rbrundrett@thestate.com.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10546796.htm
