Former first lady Roselynn Carter weighs in against the juvenile death penalty:

Adolescents are not adults. They lack full capacity to reason, control impulses and understand consequences. They do not handle social pressures and other stresses like adults do and therefore, are less culpable than adults who commit crimes. Scientific studies demonstrate their lessened responsibility. We previously believed that the brain was fully developed by age 14, but recent studies have revealed that it continues to mature until the early 20s.

We also know that the frontal lobe, which controls the brain's most complex functions -- particularly reasoning -- undergoes more change during adolescence than at any other time. It is the last part of the brain to develop. Such findings have led the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry to oppose the death penalty for juveniles.

The United States will soon become the last nation on Earth that executes juvenile offenders. There are only four countries remaining where juveniles reportedly are executed, and the United States and Somalia are the only two countries that have not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits capital punishment for those under 18. Somalia has recently signed the Convention and announced its intention to ratify.

Mrs. Carter urges the Florida Supreme Court to rule the juvenile death penalty "cruel and unusual punishment" in a case set to be determined this year.

Meanwhile, the American public should send a message to the court through their state legislatures that ''evolving standards of decency'' do not tolerate executing juvenile offenders.