(New York, January 3, 2003)
The state of Mississippi should spare Ronald Chris Foster, scheduled to be executed on January 8 for a murder he committed at age 17. If Foster's death sentence is carried out, he will be the first juvenile offender put to death in Mississippi since 1950.
"Returning to an outdated, barbaric practice is no way to begin the new year," said Michael Bochenek, counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. "Mississippi should recognize that death is an inhumane punishment, especially for someone who was under age 18 at the time of his crimes."
Elsewhere in the United States, 21 juvenile offenders have been put to death in seven states since 1976, when executions resumed after a three-year moratorium. Texas has executed 13 juvenile offenders, including three in 2002. Virginia has put three juvenile offenders to death: two in 2000 and one in 1998. The states of Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina have each executed one juvenile offender.
The execution of juvenile offenders remains legal in 22 U.S. states. Including Foster, 83 juvenile offenders were on death row in 15 states as of November 2002.
The trend in much of the country has been to raise the minimum age for capital punishment. Indiana abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders in 2002, and Montana did the same in 1999. Similar measures are being considered in at least nine other states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.
In October, four U.S. Supreme Court justices called the juvenile death penalty "a relic of the past" and concluded, "We should put an end to this shameful practice."
Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances. The death penalty is a form of punishment unique in its cruelty and finality. The intrinsic fallibility of all criminal justice systems assures that even when full due process of law is respected, innocent persons may be executed.
