On March 4, 1986, Alexander Williams was not old enough to vote, sign a contract, buy a beer, serve on a jury or enlist in the military without his parents' consent. He was 17 and thus, in the eyes of the law, a mere child.

But the law made one significant exception: Williams was old enough to conclude his life in the Georgia electric chair. After being convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, he was sentenced to do just that. The state plans to kill him Feb. 20.

The Georgia Supreme Court has since ruled out death by electrocution, making lethal injection the method of choice. But it has done nothing to prevent the execution of killers who were barely old enough to shave when they committed their crimes.

In that, the state is somewhat unusual but a long way from unique. Currently, 23 states permit the death penalty for juveniles, including 18 that allow it for killers as young as 16. No doubt others would choose a younger age, if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't ruled that option unconstitutional.

Currently, there are 82 inmates on death row who were younger than 18 at the time of their crimes. In the last 2 years, 5 juvenile offenders have been put to death--2 in Virginia and 3 in Texas.

Over the last decade, reports the American Bar Association, the United States has executed more youthful criminals than the rest of the world combined, which is partly because almost every other country has abandoned the death penalty for children. And 4 other juvenile offenders besides Williams may meet that fate in the near future.

Williams looks like someone invented by opponents of capital punishment in an audacious attempt to make the death penalty, as it is practiced in America, look cruel and stupid. Besides being only 17 at the time of the murder, he is poor, black and the victim of severe child abuse. Williams also suffers from schizophrenia that causes him to hallucinate and hear voices.

His lawyer, who was later ruled unfit to handle criminal cases, hardly bothered to offer a defense in court. In the sentencing phase, he failed to inform the jury of the pertinent fact that Williams had a history of mental illness. 5 of the jurors later gave affidavits asserting that if they had known about it, they would have voted against imposing the death penalty, notwithstanding the brutal crime he committed. But none of these lapses has weakened Georgia's resolve to terminate his life at the earliest possible date.

Other states, however, are having second thoughts about imposing the ultimate penalty on people who haven't reached adulthood. A bill in the Florida legislature would forbid the execution of anyone who was under age 18 when he committed his crime. Indiana lawmakers are considering the same step. It's also on the table in Kentucky, where a spokesman for Gov. Paul Patton has said his boss "questions whether 16- or 17-year-olds are capable of fully understanding the consequences of their actions."

Research has demonstrated that juvenile brains are still very much a work in progress, and that they tend to be weakest in the portions that govern self-control, judgment and other matters where teens often conspicuously fail to excel. The evidence argues for a measure of leniency based on the obvious fact, which is recognized in every other aspect of the law, that minors are substantially different from their elders and must be treated differently.

In recent years, some states have barred the execution of mentally retarded inmates, on the incontrovertible grounds that they lack fully developed mental capacities and thus are not entirely responsible for what they do. Even the famously pro-execution Texas legislature passed a ban, though it was vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry. Many death penalty supporters, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had no trouble grasping the irrationality of executing criminals who have the minds of children. Yet few states have proceeded with this logic to question the justice of executing criminals who have not only the minds of children but the bodies as well.

But there is no defending our practice of killing adolescent criminals merely because they had the physical capacity to commit murder. The juvenile death penalty represents a childishly obstinate refusal on the part of many citizens and states to acknowledge that young killers ought to be judged and punished by different standards from adults. In that respect, it's time we grew up.

(source: Column, Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune)

February 2002