The Death Penalty

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Juveniles and the Death Penalty It is cruel and unethical for children under eighteen to be sentenced to death row. Death Penalty, also called capital punishment is a sentence of death by a court. Children are not yet matured to receive such punishments. Also, children under the age eighteen should not be in adult prisons or trialed as an adult. Juveniles should not be sentenced to death, because they may be reasons why they commit those crimes. Not only that, children should have the right to trial if they have health issues that caused them to commit those crimes. When it comes to sentencing juveniles, we tend to look at the crime they committed and not the cause of the behavior or what kind of conditions these children are going through. …show more content…

To illustrate, in the book Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson expounds that “In 2005, the Court recognized that differences between children and adults required that kids be shielded from the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.” (Stevenson, 2014, pg. 264). Furthermore, Horn claims that “"[t]he question for the court this time around is not just whether teens are really different from adults but whether being sentenced to die in prison is truly all that different from being sentenced to die there by lethal injection.", dying from cruel and unusual punishments is the same as dying in prison (Horn, 2009). There are many reasons stated above about why juveniles who were sentenced to the death penalty was ban. For one, is health, “…legal scholars say new findings on brain dysfunction are finally gaining attention, at least where they matter most: in death penalty cases. Just this year, 4 states banned executions of the mentally retarded, bringing to of 17 the number of 38 death-penalty states…” (Mansnerus, 2001). Although the “Supreme Court’s recent decision banning the death penalty for juveniles could provide a basis for relief.”, lawyers are questioning whether juveniles sentenced to life should be unlawful (Stevenson, 2014, pg. 264). By the same token, Liptak mentions that “Similarly, people who had faced capital prosecutions for crimes they

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