INDIANA------legislation raises minimum age for execution to 18

O'Bannon signs death-penalty bill

Gov. Frank O'Bannon signed a bill Tuesday that would keep juveniles from facing the death penalty.

Shortly before it adjourned this month, the Indiana General Assembly approved legislation to raise the state's minimum age for the death penalty from 16 to 18 and require judges to follow juries' recommendations.

"I believe this is an appropriate change in Indiana's law on sentencing for convicted murderers, while preserving appropriate sentencing options for judges and juries," O'Bannon said in a news release.

Sen. Anita Bowser, D-Michigan City, sought the reform but initially had reason to doubt it would pass after several GOP lawmakers told her they would oppose it.

"It was a highly emotional thing to try to get through," Bowser said. "Those legislators who thought they couldn't vote for it for political reasons changed their minds, and it went through with flying colors ... a lot of Republicans came over to congratulate me."

Bowser urged colleagues to support the legislation based on a growing body of medical evidence that the brains of youths below 18 are underdeveloped and they cannot be held to the same legal standards as adults.

"They can't control their emotions. They can't reason properly, and there's scientific proof of that now," Bowser said.

The law also requires judges to follow a jury's sentencing recommendations. Existing rules give judges the authority to impose the death penalty even if jurors recommend against it.

If a jury cannot reach a sentencing decision, judges may sentence defendants to death, life in prison or a specified number of years in prison.

Indiana has not executed a juvenile in at least 100 years, and none is currently on death row, according to Paula Sites, an attorney with the Indiana Public Defender Council who has researched the issue.

Since 1977, prosecutors have sought the death penalty against 20 juveniles, but only 3 were sentenced to death and each of those cases was overturned on appeal, Sites said.

State lawmakers last changed the death-penalty age in 1987, when it was raised from 10 to 16. Elected officials were spurred to action after a 15-year-old girl, Paula Cooper, was convicted of stabbing an elderly Gary woman to death and became the youngest female on death row in the United States. Cooper's sentence later was reduced to 60 years.

Anti-death penalty activists view the bill's passage as a valuable step toward achieving a permanent end to capital punishment. They say if it's approved, the proposal will write into law what most judges have practiced for years.

"The courts are Hoosiers too," said Karen Burkhart, coordinator of efforts by Amnesty International to throw out Indiana's death penalty. "We're not that bloodthirsty."

Bowser said the new law is not designed to lay the groundwork for abolishing the death penalty.

"The consensus is that the death penalty should continue," she said. "I don't think it's time. I think the mood of the country is changing somewhat."

(source: Associated Press) March 26, 2002