Conference experts debate the juvenile death penalty issue

By Linda Myers

The upcoming trial of juvenile defendant Lee Boyd Malvo in the Virginia sniper case cast its shadow on a conference at Cornell Nov. 6 and 7 titled "Rethinking the Criminalization of Youth." Malvo, who was 17 when the killings he is accused of took place, is being tried as an adult and could be sentenced to death under that state's laws if the prosecution wins its case.

Reno

The Cornell conference, aimed at undergraduates and law students, also featured a final commentary by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. A Cornell graduate and a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor at Cornell for the past two years, Reno called for more, better-coordinated early intervention to staunch the flow of juvenile offenders who end up on death row. "We need to ensure that our communities invest in children before they commit crimes," she said.

The practice of executing violent juvenile offenders tried as adults places the United States squarely in opposition to the rest of the civilized world and much of the developing world, pointed out Victor Streib, an attorney and professor at Ohio Northern University Law School, in an afternoon talk at Myron Taylor Hall's Stein Mancuso Amphitheater, Nov. 7, on the history of the juvenile death penalty. Since 2000, there have been only a handful of executions of juveniles worldwide, one in Iran and one in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- countries known for their punitive penal codes -- and five in the United States, four of which were in Texas, noted Streib.

Cornell law Professor Muna Ndulo, who was part of a panel that followed, on the state of the juvenile death penalty today, argued that international law prohibits capital punishment against juveniles. In particular, he cited rules under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, signed by the United States. "No state has entered a reservation to this treaty," Ndulo noted.

Left: Janet Reno in the audience at the panel discussion "The Juvenile Death Penalty: Where Are We Now?" Nov. 7 in Myron Taylor Hall. Center: Cornell Law School faculty members John Blume, left, and Muna Ndulo (Institute for African Development director), are panelists in the symposium "The Juvenile Death Penalty: Where Are We Now?" Right: David Kaczynski of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty speaks Nov. 7, following a panel discussion in Barnes Hall. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

Cornell law Professor Steven Clymer, who prefaced his remarks by saying he was not a proponent of the death penalty, argued against a categorical approach "that says under no circumstances should we execute someone who commits a crime under the age of 18." Cases should be judged individually, he said. "Any 'bright line' [age cutoff] necessarily leads to unfairness."

Robert Blecker, a New York University law professor who has done extensive interviews with violent juvenile offenders, drew a chilling picture of some who had robbed, raped, murdered and remained remorseless for their crimes. "I would make the case that some deserve to die, and continue to advocate that their killings be death eligible," even if they are never executed, he said.

Cornell law Professor John Blume, who co-directs the school's Death Penalty Project, strongly disagreed. "The death penalty for children is wrong; [it] works like a shark net. What's in those nets in Australia that are supposed to capture sharks? Porpoises, sea turtles. You sweep up all these others," along with -- and sometimes instead of -- the vicious criminals the law was intended to catch, he argued. One case Blume spoke of involved a youthful black offender with limited intelligence and an upbringing of abuse and neglect who ended on death row after an older, more sophisticated confederate persuaded him to take the rap for a botched robbery that ended in murder. "The court drew a line," said Blume. "We will draw lines. The question is are we drawing the right line?"

Blume also said that the jury system, praised by Clymer for its democratic inclusiveness, was flawed because of problems of race and other limitations. And he responded to Blecker's harsh edict by saying: "If kids are worse, it's our fault. That does not make a juvenile death penalty a more appropriate response." Calling for its end, he quoted Martin Luther King: "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it always bends in the right direction," and he offered his own judgment: "The day when we will get rid of the reprehensible practice of [killing our children] will come soon, but it cannot come soon enough."

From left, Jeffrey Fagan, director of the Center for Violence Research and Prevention at Columbia University; Steven Drizin from the Northwestern University School of Law; and panel moderator and conference co-organizer Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Cornell professor of human development and feminist, gender and sexuality studies, take part in the panel discussion "The Treatment of Violent Youth," in Barnes Hall, Nov. 7. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

Stephen Harper, who directs the national Juvenile Death Penalty Initiative, gave support to Blume's assertion that racism plays a role in death penalty decisions. Thirteen out of 15 former slave states have a juvenile death penalty, he observed, while 13 out of 15 states that disallowed slavery have no juvenile death penalty. State-sanctioned murder of juveniles as a tool of vengeance has profound consequences, he said. "[It] has an effect on our moral values, our international standing and our vision of childhood and justice." Most dangerously, he said, "it causes children to become less valued."

Streib and several panelists predicted that the U.S. courts were likely to outlaw the practice of killing juvenile offenders soon, in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling against executing mentally disabled defendants. One reason: recent research, discussed during a morning session by developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg, Cornell Ph.D. '78, shows that the adolescent mind is not fully formed, in particular, in the areas of reasoning and judgment. Like the mentally disabled, adolescent males are likely to act on impulse and to be followers in a group setting.

The program, a joint venture between the College of Human Ecology and Cornell Law School with support from a range of programs and offices, attracted more than 150 attendees. It opened with Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of human development, feminist, gender and sexuality studies, reading from her book about a historic case of adolescent homicide, Kansas Charley: The Story of a 19th Century Boy Murderer. Brumberg, a Weiss Presidential Fellow, also moderated the Nov. 7 morning panel and helped organize the conference, along with Jane Powers, a senior research associate with the Family Life Development Center in the College of Human Ecology.