Iran to Ban Death Penalty for Juveniles
DUBAI: Iran will soon enact a law banning death penalty for offenders under 18 years of age.
Iran's judiciary has drafted a bill to be presented to parliament shortly raising the minimum age for death sentences to 18 from 15 and also excluding under-18s from receiving life terms or lashing as punishment, media in Iran quoted Alireza Jamshidi, Secretary of the Supreme Council for Judicial Development, as saying.
As Curtiss Leung, our reader who sent in the article, writes:
I understand that Supreme Court's latest word on juvenile execution was a 1989 decision written by Justice Scalia that affirmed 16 and 17 year olds could be sentenced to death. How ironic that an Islamic theocracy should be more humane than the United States.
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