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Nev. Considers Bill to Ban Juvenile Death Penalty

By Jeralyn, Section Juvenile Offenders
Posted on Sat Feb 26, 2005 at 09:06:24 AM EST
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Hearings were held in Nevada yesterday on a bill to ban the death penalty for those who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes.

That means they will spend an eternity in prison, and not be relieved from their actions until death," said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas. "The death penalty is not a deterrent, especially with youthful offenders who don't think further than today, let alone think about the consequences."

Giunchigliani said young teens are not as mentally developed as adults and so should not be subjected to the ultimate penalty. "There is now clear biological evidence that adolescents do not have the same ability as adults to make sound decisions and to prevent impulsive behavior," she said.

Executing juvenile offenders is banned in 31 states. The Supreme Court will rule on the issue this term. As to life without parole for juvenile offenders, that should be banned too as a violation of human rights laws. It's "cruel, unfair and unnessary."

"This issue of sentencing juveniles to life without parole is clearly prohibited by human rights law and it's astonishing the United States still practices this when 133 counties around the world don't, and in fact never have," said Alison Parker, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.

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    Nev. Considers Bill to Ban Juvenile Death Penalty | 1 comment (1 topical)
    Re: Nev. Considers Bill to Ban Juvenile Death Pena (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 26, 2005 at 01:44:29 PM EST
    From the article: ‘Giunchigliani said young teens are not as mentally developed as adults and so should not be subjected to the ultimate penalty...’ So, having accepted that teenagers are not fully functioning adults (gosh, that’s news!), she forwards this bill that wants to abolish the death penalty for teenagers found guilty of capital crime – instead, proposing a sentence of life without parole. From the same article she goes on to say: "That means they will spend an eternity in prison, and not be relieved from their actions until death..," So, instead of death, teenagers, guilty of capital crime, are locked away for the rest of their natural lives in a brutal environment designed to encourage a childlike docility and dependency on their keepers. In such a place, once they become fully fledged adults, they can maturely reflect on their past actions – actions taken before they had the benefit of a fully developed adult brain…And, as adults, if they get to the point where they fully accept and show remorse for the crime they committed, they will understand that it is right and proper to spend their entire lives in prison – for the crime they committed when a child…when of course they didn’t have the mature reasoning ability they now possess… This is madness! I can only hope that Giunchigliani is using this bill as a stepping stone toward an eventual rehabilitative response to juvenile crime in Nevada. Or does she really believe her bill to be the enlightened end game? If, as Giunchigliani accepts, teenagers are not the full adult package, why does she not have the courage to propose what many other states and nearly every other developed country would do and give offending youngsters, through rehabilitation programmes, a second chance? A prisoner serving LWOP once wrote of having to die a little to survive. So, this bill proposes sparing a life to replace it with a life not worth living. Sure, this bill would rightly deny the state the right to take the life of a teenage criminal – instead it reserves the right to take away all their hopes, aspirations and dreams - for life. To do this to an adult is bad, to do it to a child is just brutal; it perhaps hints at the savage infant somewhere below the surface of many adults who support such measures. What wonderfully enlightened times we live in!

    Nev. Considers Bill to Ban Juvenile Death Penalty | 1 comment (1 topical)