Thompson v. Oklahoma
Thompson v. Oklahoma was a landmark case concerning the application of the death penalty to juvenile offenders. In this case, William W. Thompson, who was fifteen at the time of his crime, was sentenced to death for his involvement in a murder. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in a 5-3 decision that executing individuals who were fifteen years old or younger at the time of their offense constituted cruel and unusual punishment, as outlined by the Eighth Amendment. This decision was significant in shaping the legal landscape surrounding juvenile justice, emphasizing the evolving standards of decency in society.
The case highlighted the ongoing debate about the treatment of minors in the criminal justice system, where juveniles are typically afforded different rights and responsibilities. The ruling underscored the notion that young individuals may not have the same level of culpability as adults, a perspective supported by contemporary psychological research on adolescent brain development. While the decision brought some relief to younger offenders, it did not extend protections to those aged sixteen and seventeen, leaving a gap in the legal framework regarding juvenile capital punishment. Overall, Thompson v. Oklahoma marked a pivotal moment in the discussion of juvenile justice and the ethical implications of capital punishment in the United States.
Thompson v. Oklahoma
Identification U.S. Supreme Court decision
Date Decided on June 29, 1988
The Court’s ruling in Thompson v. Oklahoma abolished the death penalty for convicts who were aged fifteen or younger at the time they committed their crimes. Capital punishment remained legal for minors older than fifteen.
When he was only fifteen years old, William W. Thompson participated in a brutal murder and was consequently sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals supported the trial court’s decision, and the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-3 decision (including a four-justice plurality and a separate concurring opinion), Thompson was spared the death penalty. The plurality opinion, written by John Paul Stevens , based its reasoning upon the “evolving standards of decency of society.” The dissent, written by Antonin Scalia , could not dismiss the notion of a minor potentially being mature and responsible enough for a crime to warrant state execution. Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote: She wrote in her concurring opinion that Thompson could not be executed, because the Oklahoma law establishing the death penalty for murder did not specify a minimum age of eligibility for receiving that penalty.
The legal significance of the case was that capital punishment could no longer be applied to those criminals who were aged fifteen or younger during the commission of their crime. Opponents of the death penalty have historically pursued so-called death penalty exception cases. These are controversial cases in which a characteristic of the accused murderer could potentially negate the prosecution’s attempt to seek death on behalf of the state. For instance, the 2002 Atkins v. Virginia case established that mentally retarded offenders could not be executed. Typically these “exception” arguments are supported by the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.” As in the Atkins case, Thompson was argued on Eighth Amendment grounds and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. Executing a fifteen-year-old was found to be cruel and unusual, and the Fourteenth Amendment applied this clause of the Eighth Amendment to the states.
Impact
The larger societal issue that the Thompson case raised was the appropriateness of the state-sanctioned execution of minors. Under the legal concept of parens patriae, juveniles have traditionally been treated with different rights and obligations than adults. Though this concept has been variously interpreted, it was not unusual for the American justice system to treat children as adults in cases of perpetrating murder. This practice met with both international disdain, as the United States was one of the few countries to permit the practice, and ire among the country’s voters. The Thompson case was the first to limit the practice, hence saving minors fifteen years and younger from the death penalty. This finding was not only popular but also supported by contemporary psychiatric evidence on the reduced culpability of minors resulting from the incomplete maturation of the adolescent brain. However, the execution of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds continued after Thompson.
Bibliography
Fagan, Jeffrey. “Atkins, Adolescences, and the Maturity Heuristic: Rationales for a Categorical Exemption for Juveniles from Capital Punishment.” New Mexico Law Review 33 (Spring, 2003): 207-254.
Skovron, Sandra Evans, Joseph E. Scott, and Francis T. Cullen. “The Death Penalty for Juveniles: An Assessment of Public Support.” Crime and Delinquency 35, no. 4 (1989): 546-561.