Five States that allowed the juvenile death penalty at the time of Stanford have abandoned it in the intervening 15 years—four through legislative enactments and one through judicial decision. At the sentencing phase, the State presented aggravating factors highlighting the fact that he had murdered Mrs. Crook to prevent his arrest, combined with the brutal, inhuman nature of the killing following a botched burglary. See Stanford, supra, at 372. 21, §701.10 (West 2002) (no express minimum age), S. C. Code Ann. Id., at 377–378. And here, as in Atkins, only a very small fraction of the States that permit capital punishment of offenders within the relevant class has actually carried out such an execution in recent history: Six States have executed under-18 offenders in the 16 years since Stanford, while five States had executed mentally retarded offenders in the 13 years prior to Atkins. : The public has become increasingly aware that children are different from adults.

On the same afternoon fishermen recovered the victim’s body from the river. In accord with this plan, Simmons and his 15-year-old accomplice broke into Mrs. Crook’s home in the middle of the night, forced her from her bed, bound her, and drove her to a state park. But if we cannot convince the Supreme Court and the American people that the juvenile death penalty is wrong, then the abolition movement is in deep trouble.

As the Court explained in Atkins, the Eighth Amendment guarantees individuals the right not to be subjected to excessive sanctions. L. Rev. As Justice O’Connor has explained: “The history of the death penalty instructs that there is danger in inferring a settled societal consensus from statistics like those relied on in this case.

§20A–2–101 (Lexis 2002), Vt. Stat. Thompson v. Oklahoma, supra; Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U. S. 399 (1986); Atkins, supra. See Eddings, 455 U. S., at 115–117. Marsh, supra, at ___, ___, 102 p. 3d, at 452, 464; LaValle, supra, at 99, 817 N. E 2d, at 344.

(2) Rejection of the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders under 18 is required by the Eighth Amendment.

VII, §2 S. D. Codified Laws Ann. Code §2.36.070 (West 2004), Wyo.

2001); J. Spencer, The English System in European Criminal Procedures 142, 204, and n. 239 (M. Delmas-Marty & J. Spencer eds. In Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 815 (1988), a plurality of four Justices concluded that the Eighth Amendment barred capital punishment of an offender for a crime committed before the age of 16. Without a clearer showing that a genuine national consensus forbids the execution of such offenders, this Court should not substitute its own “inevitably subjective judgment” on how best to resolve this difficult moral question for the judgments of the Nation’s democratically elected legislatures. This inquiry reflects the special character of the Eighth Amendment, which, as the Court has long held, draws its meaning directly from the maturing values of civilized society.

United States v. Hatter, 532 U. S. 557, 567 (2001); see also State Oil Co., supra, at 20; Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477, 484 (1989). But our decision in Atkins did not rest solely on this tentative conclusion.

If juries cannot make appropriate determinations in cases involving murderers under 18, in what other kinds of cases will the Court find jurors deficient? Death Penalty Information Center Website, www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=8&did=146.

Code Ann.

Ann., Tit. Cts. §§2.101–2.103 (West 1998), Utah Code Ann. Accordingly, the sentencer in a capital case must be permitted to give full effect to all constitutionally relevant mitigating evidence. 2004) (no express minimum age), Miss.

705, §305/2 (West 2002), Kan. Stat. Civ. 14. See V. Streib, The Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973–December 31, 2004, No.

Id., at 382. We must treat these decisions just as though they represented real law, real prescriptions democratically adopted by the American people, as conclusively (rather than sequentially) construed by this Court.

Given the nuances of scientific methodology and conflicting views, courts—which can only consider the limited evidence on the record before them—are ill equipped to determine which view of science is the right one. The majority recognized that their current opinion was in conflict with their Stanford ruling and emphasized that the evidence of an objective consensus against the death penalty for juveniles had changed since 1989 when they had ruled on this same issue. I reaffirmed my view that, beyond assessing the actions of legislatures and juries, the Court has a constitutional obligation to judge for itself whether capital punishment is a proportionate response to the defendant’s blameworthiness.

Canada rarely excludes evidence and will only do so if admission will “bring the administration of justice into disrepute.” Id., at 550–551 (internal quotation marks omitted). In the case of Roper v. Simmons,1 the U.S. Supreme Court was once again asked to address the constitutionality of sentencing a juvenile offender to death. When we heard Stanford, by contrast, 12 death penalty States had already prohibited the execution of any juvenile under 18, and 15 had prohibited the execution of any juvenile under 17. 2004), La. 119, §74 (West 2003); N. D. Cent. While drawing the line at 18 is subject to the objections always raised against categorical rules, that is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood and the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest. This reality does not become controlling, for the task of interpreting the Eighth Amendment remains our responsibility. After he had turned 18, he was sentenced to death. When we heard Penry, only two death penalty States had already prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded. Mitigating?

Napoleon helped men much older than he to reach their own potential, yet he was killed and couldn’t reach his own. And the family members of the condemned are often forgotten. For a similar reason we have, in our determination of society’s moral standards, consulted the practices of sentencing juries: Juries “   ‘maintain a link between contemporary community values and the penal system’   ” that this Court cannot claim for itself. }); That the Senate and the President—those actors our Constitution empowers to enter into treaties, see Art.

This judgment is not merely a rubber stamp on the tally of legislative and jury actions.

Our previous cases have required overwhelming opposition to a challenged practice, generally over a long period of time. Because the capital punishment statute in Thompson did not specify the minimum age at which commission of a capital crime would be punishable by death, I concluded that the statute could not be read to authorize the death penalty for a 15-year-old offender. In Thompson v. Oklahoma,7 the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to determine if our nation's evolving standards of decency constitutionally allowed the execution of any offender who was under the age of 16 at the time the crime was committed. Capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit “a narrow category of the most serious crimes” and whose extreme culpability makes them “the most deserving of execution.” Atkins, 536 U. S. at 319.

The Court might have relied on the word “unusual” to make a textual case for looking to the practices of other nations (and for according a special significance to international norms in the Eighth Amendment context). To what degree might this extension continue?

Though these cases are assuredly the exception rather than the rule, the studies the Court cites in no way justify a constitutional imperative that prevents legislatures and juries from treating exceptional cases in an exceptional way—by determining that some murders are not just the acts of happy-go-lucky teenagers, but heinous crimes deserving of death.

We then must determine, in the exercise of our own independent judgment, whether the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for juveniles. Ann. Without question, there has been a global trend in recent years towards abolishing capital punishment for under-18 offenders. 536 U. S., at 315–316. 2003 and main ed.)

Prior to his offense, Christopher discussed with his friends his desire to kill someone by breaking into and entering the person's home, robbing the person, tying the person up, and then throwing the person off a bridge. These numbers, in the Court’s view, indicated there was no national consensus “sufficient to label a particular punishment cruel and unusual.” Id., at 370–371. 1, p 4). The Court noted objective indicia of society’s standards, as expressed in legislative enactments and state practice with respect to executions of the mentally retarded.

See ante, at 19.

Though the international covenants prohibiting the juvenile death penalty are of more recent date, it is instructive to note that the United Kingdom abolished the juvenile death penalty before these covenants came into being. I turn, finally, to the Court’s discussion of foreign and international law.

How many more innocent people will be killed?

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 239 (1972) (per curiam); Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 666–667 (1962); Louisiana ex rel.

The susceptibility of juveniles to immature and irresponsible behavior means “their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.” Thompson, supra, at 835 (plurality opinion).

§53a–46a(h) (West 2001), Ill. Comp. In holding that the death penalty cannot be imposed upon juvenile offenders, we take into account the circumstance that some States have relied on Stanford in seeking the death penalty against juvenile offenders. 1, p 1).