It’s 1994. O.J. Simpson, former professional athlete, is taken into police custody to be questioned about the murder of his ex wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Eventually, charges are filed, Mr. Simpson is processed into the police system, and he is formally charged with the murder of said wife. But, not so fast, as it’s time for this week’s segment of ‘what if’.
Essentially, ‘what if’ is when we take a real life example and put our spin on to it. Using Mr. Simpson’s trial as an example, we’re going to use the what if scenario of Mr. Simpson being an adolescent at the time of his alleged murder charge. If you didn’t know, the death penalty is legal in California. But, a 2005 Supreme Court ruling stated the death penalty for those under the age of 18 was cruel and unusual. Essentially, the court came about their decision from one of their 2002 cases where they deemed it unconstitutional to execute those legally, mentally retarded. Building off of that, those under 18 are put into the same group, as both kinds of offenders are “less culpable” than adults, according to court documents. Interestingly enough, in August of 2017, another ruling in a Kentucky trial court expanded the Supreme Court’s ruling to those under the age of 21.
Recently, there’s been a lot of debate on if the death penalty should be imposed on adolescent juveniles. As in every debate, there’s people extremely against and there’s people extremely for what is being debated. Legally, juveniles are protected from the death penalty, but in every good story we must get those extremely for the death penalty’s opinions as well.
To get someone for the execution of juveniles we must travel back to 1642 to analyze the case of 16-year-old Thomas Granger. Granger was hanged to death in Massachusetts for having sex with a slew of animals, according to Juvenile Justice. Before it was made illegal, approximately 360 juvenile offenders were executed, including 12-year-old Hannah Ocuish. Ocuish murdered a 6-year-old, but was alleged to suffer from a mental disability. In 2017, she would have escaped execution based on age and condition.
In 1964, after the execution of James Echols in Texas, the death penalty was seldom used for next approximate 20 years. Leading up to this point, the states were for the death penalty for anyone who fit the criteria, but they were essentially following the letter of the law. Over time, people started to show compassion, and the capital punishment was looked at as taboo by society, according to Juvenile Justice. In 1972, the Supreme Court intervened, striking down the death penalty to anyone, according to court documents. But, as the death penalty law was axed, states were able to set in place a new one, and juveniles were back on death row by 1974, according to Juvenile Justice.
Circling back, three decades later, the Supreme Court jumped back in with their landmark ruling Roper v. Simmons, as previously stated. In fact, the ruling saved the 72 juvenile offenders on death row at the time, according to Juvenile Justice. Since 2005, executing juvenile offenders has been deemed cruel and unusual. Before the ruling, 22 juvenile offenders were executed between 1974 and 2005 when the Supreme Court “abolished” capital punishment, according to Juvenile Justice while 226 were sentenced to death.
As with slavery, the death penalty for juveniles was simply the way things were run in America for awhile. Eventually, human’s compassion swooped in and saved the day.
