Cornell historian says it's time to stop executing minors in the U.S.

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

On Oct. 13 the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in Roper v. Simmons, a case that could determine the future of the juvenile death penalty in America.

Brumberg

Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Cornell professor of history, human development and gender studies, with expertise on the history of American childhood, says the court must -- once and for all -- halt the practice of executing minors. "America cannot legitimately hold itself up as a beacon of human rights around the world as long as we continue to execute people for crimes committed as juveniles," she explained.

Brumberg, the author of Kansas Charley: The Boy Murderer (Penguin Books, 2004), argued that "kids who kill are not a new phenomenon. While it was appropriate to conflate children with adults a century ago, today it is not."

Brumberg explained that adolescents should not be held to the same standard of legal culpability as adults. "A growing body of scientific evidence gathered in the last 15 years shows that juveniles, much like the mentally retarded, lack the mental capacity to make informed decisions," she said.

Kansas Charley is a historical and psycho-social review of the case of Charley Miller, born in 1874 and orphaned by the age of 6. He moved from foster home to foster home, suffered both mental and physical abuse, and then finally went off on his own to tramp penniless across the country. In September 1890, at the age of 15, while stowing away on a Union Pacific freight train, he met two financially solvent boys -- Waldo Emerson and Ross Fishbaugh -- who had been tramping for adventure. Miller shot them both in the head and robbed them while they were sleeping.

The murder made national news. Miller successfully fled the murder scene and investigators had few clues, but he was so overwrought with guilt that he turned himself in and confessed to the crime. After a national debate about his fate and numerous court appeals, Miller was hanged in 1892 in Cheyenne, Wyo. -- at the age of 17.

The case before the Supreme Court, Roper v. Simmons, has some elements that are similar to Charley Miller's. Christopher Simmons, like Miller, was repeatedly beaten and abused as a child, and his crime was horrific. At the age of 17, he was charged with the murder of Shirley Crook, whose body was found in the Meramec River in Missouri on Sept. 9, 1993. Crook had been bound with cable, straps and duct tape and tossed alive into the river, where she drowned.

The lower Missouri courts found Simmons guilty and sentenced him to death. In 2002 the Supreme Court of Missouri denied the death penalty for Simmons, explaining that execution would violate his 8th and 14th Amendment rights. Roper v. Simmons will test Stanford v. Kentucky, the 1989 decision that allowed execution of 16- and 17-year-olds.

Fifteen years after Stanford v. Kentucky, the world has changed, explained Brumberg, pointing out that most other countries reject the idea of executing people for crimes they committed as minors. In the Simmons case, 48 nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and Canada, have submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, suggesting that executing someone under age 18 violates human rights norms and the minimal standards set by the United Nations. "The juvenile death penalty violates international standards of decency even among autocratic regimes like Saudia Arabia, Nigeria, Iran and the Congo," she said.

In the afterword of Kansas Charley, Brumberg addresses the scientific and medical causes for violent behavior, including the possibility that there may be a biological cause. However, she is quick to say that any biological propensity to violence is probably activated by environmental stressors, such as family dysfunction, poverty and abuse.

Beyond the science, Brumberg points to modern death-row statistics as well. Between 1973 and 2002, the United States executed more minors than all the other countries in the world combined. She said: "In the eyes of the international community, the United States now stands out for its backwardness rather than its humanity. After a century of struggling with this issue, it is time for Americans to outlaw this barbaric practice. History shows that we pick on boys with the least resources and that these cases most often become political footballs."