When I was a junior in high school, I was arrested and expelled from school. I spent the rest of my high school education jumping between online and alternative school. I went to six different schools between spring of junior year and spring of senior year, trying to find a school that would accept an expelled student but also provide challenging enough classes for me. Once my expulsion was up, I returned to public school and finished out my senior year at Lakewood High School. In May 2013, I graduated high school with a 3.5 accumulative grade point average, pulling a 4.0 grade point average from the time of my expulsion on. I walked across the same stage as the athletes, the band geeks, the book worms and the teacher’s pets. An expelled student with a juvenile record walked across the same stage as the full ride scholarship earners and the Valedictorians. Today, I am attending the University of Northern Colorado, double majoring in Criminal Justice and Psychology. I received a 3.4 grade point average my first semester, while holding two part time jobs and playing softball as well. This semester, I have a 3.5 grade point average and three jobs. I want to become a forensic psychologist and am working towards graduate school. I am living proof that rehabilitation is possible for 99% of juvenile offenders. Juveniles who commit non-serious and non-violent crimes are completely able to be rehabilitated. However, in accordance with the law, the death penalty should be a sentencing option in juvenile criminal cases. It should only be an option when the crime committed is violent, premeditated, and malicious, because these offenders are beyond the possibility of rehabilitation and the risk of recidivism is too great.
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...r: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Print.
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The punishment of juveniles by execution is a longstanding practice in our nation’s history. Throughout the last few decades, the U.S. Supreme court has been asked to determine if the execution of a juvenile, sixteen or seventeen years old at the time of the offense, represents cruel and unusual punishment. In various rulings, the U.S. Supreme court has interpreted cruel and unusual punishment to include penalties that are excessive, not proportioned to the offense, and those that do not consider
treason and other heinous crimes that would otherwise be regarded as capital offenses. If the accused child is tried in the court of law, the death penalty is usually out of question (Jane, 2011). The big question here is; should the juveniles be given a death penalty? Is it fair for them to walk away with such a crime? Pros of Giving Juveniles a Death Sentence First, this is a potential crime deterrent. Majority of the minors clearly understand that they can be able to walk away from a big crime
The Sentencing of Juveniles Today, we live in a society faced with many problems, including crime and the fear that it creates. In the modern era, juveniles have become a part of society to be feared, not rehabilitated. The basis of the early juvenile justice system was to rehabilitate and create safe havens for wayward youth. This is not the current philosophy, although the U.S. is one of the few remaining countries to execute juveniles. Presently, our nation is under a presidential administration
400 years over 360 juveniles have been executed for the particularly heinous crimes they committed. The death penalty in juvenile cases had developed greatly in the past 400 years, starting with Thomas Granger execution in 1642 and progressing to the Roper v. Simmons trail in 2005 where juvenile execution was outlawed in the United States. “Death penalty” and “capital punishment” have the same meaning. They mean the punishment of execution administered to a person or juvenile legally convicted of
The death penalty should not apply to juveniles because young offenders should be given a second chance, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment and many juveniles are still too young to comprehend the consequences of their actions. They don’t think about the decision they make now may have a big impact on their lives ahead of them. Juveniles are offenders who committed their crimes before tuning eighteen. Juveniles tend to live in the present. There have been many court cases with the controversy
The death penalty is punishment by execution, state-sanctioned and administered by the government in the United States. The death penalty can actually come in several different forms, including lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad, and hanging. However, the most commonly used in the United States is lethal injection (Death Penalty Information Center, 2016). This form of punishment was actually greatly influenced by Great Britain back in the 17th century, and the first execution
Day after day in this country there is a debate going on about the death penalty and whether we as people have the right to decide the fate of another persons life. When we examine this issue we usually consider those we are arguing about to be older men and women who are more than likely hardened criminals with rap sheets longer than the height we stand (Farley & Willwerth, 1998). They have made a career of crime, committing it rather than studying it, and somewhere along the line a jury
that the death penalty is, “the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime.” Capital crimes array from murder to drug trafficking. In the United States the death penalty is mostly administered towards first-degree murder, with non-murder crimes varying by state. “Currently, only 58 nations actively practice the death penalty, with 96 countries having abolished it, the remainder have not used the death penalty for 10 years or only allow for death in exceptional
world were Juveniles offenders are able to be sentence the death penalty. Juveniles lack maturity and does have a develop sense of responsibility. Being under the age of 18 children are not yet fully developed and able to understand how their actions could cause harsh punishment. Based on the eighth amendment children should protected from death penalty, because it cruel and unusual for adolescents. Therefore, it is constitutional to allow juveniles to be sentence the death penalty because immaturity
unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile under the age of 18 to the death penalty. Before, Roper v. Simmons, in Thompson v. Oklahoma it had been decided that only those under the age of 16 could not be considered for the death penalty. Were these decisions correct? If an adolescent can commit such a heinous crime as homicide should they not also be able then to handle the consequences? The other side of the argument against the juvenile death penalty states that juveniles do not have the same reasoning
against the juvenile death penalty. When I told her I supported the juvenile death penalty she was extremely shocked. She commented, “So you think a nine year old who accidently kills their mom should get the death penalty?” This seems to be many people’s idea of the juvenile death penalty, an overgeneralization and misunderstanding of the types of crimes and situations that would warrant the death penalty. This is not what the juvenile death penalty is. In reality the juvenile death penalty is reserved
Capital Punishment, the sentencing of offenders to death through bifurcated trials (the division of a trial between guilt and sentencing phases), has been one of the most controversial aspects of our criminal justice system. It has been hotly debated for decades regarding whether or not the death penalty can be considered constitutional. In order to fully understand how the death penalty can be properly imposed we must look at the cases of Gregg vs. Georgia and Roper vs. Simmons. In the year 1976
A. Should the death penalty be given to minors? The two groups against this issue, are the religious and medical groups. They believe they are too young to know what they have done. The medical groups believe adolescents are less developed than adults and should not be held to the same standards. . The opposing side, held mostly by state officials, feel if they are old enough to commit the crime they, old enough to get the punishment, including death. B. The very first execution of a minor
The death penalty issue has always been one of the most important issues of the contemporary system of justice. Years ago, most the criminals were male over 20, but nowadays the situation has quite changed. Not only grown-ups but also by children who are under 18 years old nowadays commit murders and other terrible crimes. Ordinarily, a young criminal is not applied the same restrictions for his crime as a grown criminal is, nevertheless if it especially goes about capital crimes people start talking
In 1993, a young boy at the age of 17 thought that he could get away with murder, but completely made a fool of himself and ruined his life. The case Roper v. Simmons takes place in 2004, which explains how Christopher was given the death penalty for the murder of Shirley Crook. He had planned this days in advance with a couple of other buddies, Charles Benjamin 15 and John Tessmer 16 to rob her, kidnap her and murdered her. On the night of the incident Tessmer chickens out. Charles and Christopher