Juvenile Court Philosophy: Death Penalty and Habitual Offenders

Introduction to Juvenile Justice Philosophy

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) offers researchers and readers many insightful documents regarding the history of the juvenile justice movement. That history is grounded almost entirely in the ideals of a few reformers who sought to create systems that responded more humanely to juvenile perpetrators of crime, alongside the more modern movement to provide accountability and retribution for juvenile offending. Among the OJJDP's document offerings are two particularly instructive articles. The first argues against the use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders, based upon the special considerations of youth as outlined by the Supreme Court and the juvenile justice system's emphasis on understanding youth mentalities and development (Cothern, 2000). The second outlines, nearly decade by decade, the movement toward stricter and more adult-like responses to youth crime — especially serious crime committed by youths considered habitual offenders (Medaris, 1996).

Each of these articles addresses many realistic considerations involved in enforcing criminal laws upon juvenile offenders, as such enforcement has evolved over the years. Together, they illuminate a deep tension at the heart of juvenile justice philosophy: the conflict between rehabilitation and retribution.

Juveniles and the Death Penalty: Cothern's Analysis

Cothern's article provides a definitive overview of the history of the juvenile justice system — both as it was originally conceived and as it has evolved over the years to include sentencing options such as the death penalty and life in prison for offenders who were under the age of 18 when they committed the crime in question. The article also provides a brief but comprehensive overview of the use of the death penalty across the criminal population as a whole, as well as specifically against youth. It highlights Supreme Court considerations of the issue and the stipulations the Court has applied to youth sentencing and to the criminal prosecution of juveniles as adults, including the special circumstances created by changing public perceptions of crime and public safety.

In essence, the article traces the evolution of the death penalty as it applies to both youth and adults. It confirms that even the special circumstances described by Supreme Court opinion — such as the particular obligation of the court to consider mitigating circumstances in each individual juvenile's life as crucial to sentencing decisions — have been ignored in the face of limited resources. Cothern contends that this disregard runs completely counter to the juvenile justice system's foundational goal of rehabilitation rather than retribution. The most telling information in the article is Cothern's assessment of a diagnostic evaluation study conducted on a large group of individuals sentenced to death for crimes committed as juveniles, which reveals the extent to which the criminal court system has failed to meet the Supreme Court's demands for documenting mitigating circumstances prior to imposing a death sentence.

Mitigating Circumstances Ignored in Capital Cases

In the mid-1980s, Lewis and colleagues (1988) conducted diagnostic evaluations of 14 (40%) of the 37 juvenile offenders on death row in the United States. Through these comprehensive assessments, Lewis and colleagues found that all 14 had sustained head injuries as children. Nine had major neuropsychological disorders, seven had experienced psychotic disorders since early childhood, and seven had serious psychiatric disturbances. Seven were psychotic at the time of evaluation or had been diagnosed as such in early childhood. Only two had IQ scores above 90 (100 is considered average). Only three had average reading abilities, and another three had learned to read while on death row. Twelve reported having been brutally abused — physically, sexually, or both — and five reported having been sodomized by relatives.

Many of these factors, however, had not been placed in evidence at the time of trial or sentencing and had not been used to establish mitigating circumstances:

"The time and expertise required to document the necessary clinical information were not available. Furthermore, the attorneys' alliances were often divided between the juveniles and their families. [O]n several occasions, attorneys who chose to make use of our evaluations requested that we conceal or minimize parental physical and sexual abuse to spare the family… Brain damage, paranoid ideation, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, all relevant to issues of mitigation, were either overlooked or deliberately concealed." (Lewis et al., 1988, as cited in Cothern, 2000, pp. 5–6)

Cothern then describes several additional modern research studies that found mitigating circumstances — beyond the significant mitigating circumstance of youth itself — either unexplored or ignored by courts in juvenile death sentence cases. Robinson and Stephens applied five descriptive categories to 91 juveniles sentenced to death between 1973 and 1991. The categories were based on mitigating circumstances established by the evidence and were in addition to "youth," a mitigating factor established in Eddings v. Oklahoma. Robinson found that:

Almost half of those sentenced had troubled family histories and social backgrounds, including physical abuse, unstable childhood environments, and illiteracy. Twenty-nine suffered psychological disturbances such as profound depression, paranoia, and self-mutilation. Just under one-third exhibited mental disability evidenced by low or borderline IQ scores. More than half were indigent. Eighteen were involved in intensive substance abuse before the crime. Juveniles sentenced to death share varying combinations of these mitigating circumstances, in addition to their youthful age. In 61 of the 91 cases (67%), one or more factors in addition to "youth" were present. (Cothern, 2000, p. 6)

Cothern further stresses the disproportionate application of laws and standards across states with regard to minority offenders, as well as other inequities in the application of the death penalty to youth offenders. All of his observations underscore the need to reevaluate the use of the death penalty as a sentencing option in youth cases. His work presents a fair representation of both sides of the issue but ultimately concludes that existing legal precedents — already established by Supreme Court rulings — must at the very least be followed consistently. As the research above demonstrates, more than half of the capital punishment cases involving offenses committed by youth did not adhere to the guidelines of the most recent Supreme Court rulings on the subject.

The SHOCAP Program and the Shift Toward Retribution

In contrast to Cothern's critique of the death sentence for juvenile offenders stands the OJJDP factsheet describing the increased need for identifying and referring to adult criminal courts those juveniles considered serious habitual offenders, along with a set of broad guidelines for handling such cases (Medaris, 1996). It is clear from the Medaris document that the character of juvenile justice was substantially altered during the 1980s and 1990s to include not only the traditional rehabilitative ideal but also a much greater emphasis on retribution and accountability for offenders perceived as posing an undue public safety risk. This shift coincides with the rise of mandatory minimum sentencing laws and three-strikes laws, which moved criminal decision-making away from judicial discretion and into standardized frameworks that do not account for the mitigating circumstances of individual adults or juveniles.

Medaris does not attempt to further define the very broad objectives of the Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP). SHOCAP has three stated objectives:

To provide a structured, coordinated juvenile justice system focus on crimes committed by habitual juvenile offenders. To establish specific juvenile justice policies that enhance the effectiveness of procedures regarding habitual juvenile offenders. To promote public safety by identifying, tracking, arresting, and prosecuting the most violent habitual juvenile offenders.

In short, SHOCAP identifies a community's most dangerous and violent juvenile offenders and focuses community resources on immediate intervention or detention when they reoffend. The program is designed to prevent youth from falling through the cracks by ensuring that their case information is immediately available for juvenile justice decision-makers (Medaris, 1996).

The program is clearly intended to answer public fear rather than to provide rehabilitative services for juvenile offenders who have entered the system more than once. Though Medaris briefly outlines the research used to establish the need for such a program, and acknowledges that collaborative communication between agencies is essential for appropriate implementation, the program represents an unmistakable shift in the mentality of juvenile justice — one aligned with public sentiment about perceived threats to public safety rather than with the goal of early, effective intervention that might prevent the emergence of so many serious habitual offenders in the first place.

Conclusion

Overall, Cothern's work presents a fair representation of both sides of the capital punishment debate but concludes that there must be a renewed challenge to such sentencing and an invigorated commitment to maintaining legal standards for youth consideration and mitigating circumstances in criminal court proceedings. In short, Cothern stresses that at the very least the legal precedents already in place must be followed — precedents that the evidence shows are being ignored in more than half of capital cases involving juvenile offenders.

The contrast between Cothern's rehabilitative framework and the retributive logic of SHOCAP reflects a broader unresolved tension within the American juvenile justice system. Until policy prioritizes early, individualized intervention over fear-driven enforcement, the system risks continuing to fail the very youth it was originally designed to protect and reform.

References

Cothern, L. (November 2000). Juveniles and the death penalty. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/184748.pdf

Medaris, M. (August 1996). Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Action Program (SHOCAP). Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Factsheet. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/shocap.txt