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Juvenile executions opposed

Legislation that would end the death penalty for juveniles in Virginia has been introduced in the General Assembly's 2005 session.

By CHELYEN DAVIS

Date published: 1/18/2005

RICHMOND--What does Virginia have in common with Iran, Somalia and Sudan?

They all allow executions for crimes committed by juveniles.

Legislation submitted this year by Del. Vincent Callahan, R-McLean, and Sen. Patricia Ticer, D-Alexandria, would remove Virginia from that list by saying that juveniles who murder someone cannot be sentenced to death for their crimes.

"There's something fundamentally wrong with a society that executes children," Callahan said.

Supporters of the bills held a news conference yesterday to bring attention to the issue.

Speakers pointed out that studies of adolescents' brains show that their ability to make decisions and control impulses is not fully developed.

"Adolescents are not adults," said Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "If they are not old enough to vote, to drink alcoholic drinks, to enter into contracts, to participate in combat, how come they are old enough to be executed?"

Del. Al Eisenberg, D-Arlington, who has signed on to Callahan's bill, said, "Anybody that has teenage children knows on a daily basis how bad their judgment can be."

Eisenberg said the United States, by allowing people to be executed for crimes committed as juveniles, is in the company of "dictator and rogue countries" such as Sudan and Somalia.

Payden-Travers said that Virginia has executed 21 juvenile offenders since 1787. Of those, 19 were black.

Only six states, including Virginia, still allow people to be executed for crimes committed when they were juveniles, Payden-Travers said. Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of juveniles it has executed.

However, Payden-Travers said the tide is turning against the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles.

"Increasingly, juries across the nation, like the Chesapeake jury of Lee Boyd Malvo in 2003, are not willing to put young offenders to death," Payden-Travers said.

Malvo, one of the two Beltway snipers who terrorized motorists in the fall of 2002, was convicted in two shootings in Spotsylvania County. He was 17 at the time of the shooting.

Malvo entered Alford pleas to charges of capital murder of Philadelphia businessman Kenneth Bridges and the attempted capital murder of Caroline Seawell of Spotsylvania.

He was sentenced to two life terms in prison by Circuit Judge William H. Ledbetter Jr.

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Date published: 1/18/2005