David Smith On The Death Penalty

The death penalty has always been a controversial issue in the United States. The conflict over a governmental power’s ability to end the life of a person under their jurisdiction is where a new topic of debate. Since the first person on American soil received a sentence of death in Jamestown in 1608, both sides of the issue have asserted that their stance on the death penalty is correct. (Grizzard & Smith 2007). This issue, however, magnifies when the focus of the legality and morality of the death penalty does not apply to the adult population, but instead to juveniles under the age of eighteen who have committed heinous crimes against society.
In January of 1981, Kevin Stanford was seventeen years old when he robbed a gas station, kidnapped

Smith argues that there is “no magic age at which all persons suddenly achieve the sophistication and judgement of an adult” (43). He expands on his argument by writing about how minds develop at different rates and times. There is no uniform way to measure a person’s cognitive ability to understand the severity of their actions. Using that baseline, how can society impose such an extreme type of punishment when that punishment may not apply to all people of the same mental awareness? Smith argues that it is an unreasonable idea to believe that when people turn eighteen, their brains completely change and they have the ability to make good, rational, and smart decisions. He also focuses his argument on the role of the courts by declaring that it is not their place to argue the matter of age, but instead to uphold the constitutional standard. Smith reasons in his argument that it should be up to the state legislatures to look at individual cases and determine what punishment would be best. Of the states that do allow the death penalty, the majority allow the application to people under the age of eighteen. Smith concluded his argument by stating that “maturity and sophistication are factors which vary from individual to individual” and that those factors, not a definitive age, should be the basis for the court’s decision to employ the death penalty for those under the age of eighteen (43). Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with Smith’s argument, confirming that, “executing people for crimes they commit when sixteen or older is not cruel and unusual punishment” (“Stanford v. Kentucky 1989”). Justice Scalia further supports Smith by corroborating that from 1982-1988, forty-five juvenile offenders had received the death penalty in the United States, showing an overwhelming acceptance by society that some juvenile crimes are