Stanford v. Kentucky

Petitioner
Kevin N. Stanford
Respondent
State of Kentucky
Petitioner's Claim
That the imposition of a death sentence for a murder he committed when he was17 years old violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Frank W. Heft, Jr.
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Frederic J. Cowan
Justices for the Court
Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia(writing for the Court), Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
26 June 1989
Decision
The Supreme Court upheld Stanford's death sentence.
Significance
In declaring that neither the framers of the Constitution nor contemporary society regarded a death sentence as cruel and unusual punishment for someone who was almost 18 years old at the time he committed murder, the Court loweredthe barrier to capital punishment. After Stanford, states could impose the death penalty on anyone over the age of 16.
On 7 January 1981, Kevin Stanford was 17 years, four months old. That night,he and an accomplice repeatedly raped and sodomized 20-year-old Barbel Pooreduring a robbery of the gas station where she worked as an attendant. After taking 300 cartons of cigarettes, two gallons of fuel, and a small amount of cash, Stanford and his accomplice drove with Poore to a secluded area, where Stanford shot Poore point blank in the face and then in the back of the head.
After Stanford was arrested, a Kentucky juvenile court conducted a hearing todetermine whether or not he should be tried as an adult. A state law provided that anyone charged with a capital crime, or who was over the age of 16 andcharged with a felony, could be tried as an adult. Because of the seriousness of Stanford's crime and his long record of juvenile arrests, the juvenile court certified him for trial as an adult.
Stanford was convicted of murder, sodomy, first-degree robbery, and receivingstolen goods. He was sentenced to death plus 45 years in jail. The KentuckySupreme Court affirmed this decision, citing the numerous failed attempts totreat or reform Stanford. Claiming that his death sentence amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment, Stanford appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Court Declares that Capital Punishment May Be Imposed on Those Over Sixteen Years of Age
Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia held that it was not cruel and unusualpunishment to impose the death sentence on those who were juveniles at the time they the committed crimes for which they were later convicted. Putting todeath those who had almost reached the age of majority for horrendous crimesdid not offend the drafters of the Bill of Rights and does not offend contemporary American society:

At that time [when the Bill of Rights wasadopted], common law set the . . . presumption of incapacity to commit any felony at the age of 14, and theoretically permitted capital punishment to be imposed on anyone over the age of 7 . . . Thus petitioners are left to argue that their punishment is contrary to the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" [Quoting Trop v. Dulles (1958)] . . . a majority of the States that permit capital punishment authorize itfor crimes committed at age 16 or above . . .

For Scalia, and for four other members of the Court, the fact that a majority of the states permit capital punishment to be enforced against those over 16 years of age proved conclusive: Stanford's sentence was affirmed.
Justices Brennan and Marshall dissented from this view, declining to vote infavor of the death penalty, as always. In his dissenting opinion, Brennan made much of the fact that state prosecutors seldom pursue the death penalty forjuveniles. For Brennan, this was proof that capital punishment for anyone under the age of 18 did not conform with "contemporary standards of decency."
The whole notion of juvenile justice is in fact a modern one. The concept originated late in the nineteenth century and was not subjected to constitutional restraints until Kent v. United States (1966). In In re Gault(1967), the Supreme Court held that juvenile courts must observe the same procedural protections afforded adult offenders. And in In re Winship (1970), the Court ruled that prosecutors who charge juveniles with adult crimesmust meet the adult standard of proof, "beyond a reasonable doubt."
While these early decisions might seem to have expanded protections for juvenile offenders, Stanford demonstrates that the process of bringing juvenile justice in line with the criminal procedure applied to adults has its darker side. Stanford made it clear that if an offender is at least 16 when he or she commits a capital crime, the Supreme Court will not intervene to prevent the death sentence from being carried out.
Related Cases

• Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958).
  
• Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966).
  
• In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).
  
• In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970).
  
• Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
  
• Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977).
  
• Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988).

Juvenile Capital Punishment
As of 1996, there were eight states--Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah--that had no statutes governing the minimum age for capital punishment. Fourteen states, along with the federal system, set the minimum at 18 years of age: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.
Among Southern states, Tennessee had the highest minimum age for execution. Four states (George, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Texas) authorized 17 as the minimum age, though in North Carolina a person 14 or older who was incarcerated for murder and then committed another murder could be executed.
The remaining states all had minimum ages of 16 or less. Sixteen was the minimum in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri,Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Finally, Arkansas and Virginia authorized thedeath penalty for persons 14 years old or older.
According to Amnesty International, five nations have executed prisoners younger than 18 years of age since 1990. Of these, the United States is the onlynon-Islamic country, the others being Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
Sources
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment 1996. Washington, DC: U.S. Government, 1997.