Opinion ID: 1059907
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Subjecting 16-year-old defendants to death penalty

Text: Jackson, who had attained his 16th birthday only six weeks before the offenses occurred, contends that execution of 16-year-old defendants is not authorized by statute in Virginia. According to him, in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 2969, 106 L.Ed.2d 306 (1989), the United States Supreme Court made it very clear that it is up to each state to decide the minimum age for execution and provide[d] that each state must enact [death penalty statutes] with great specificity, especially dealing with juveniles, in order to allow for constitutionally sound punishments. Since Code §§ 18.2-31, 19.2-264.2 and -264.5 do not specifically provide for the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles convicted of capital murder, Jackson concludes that the death penalty cannot be imposed upon him. We do not agree. Under the provisions of Code §§ 16.1-269.1 and -272, juveniles over the age of 14 years are, after proper proceedings in juvenile court and circuit court, subject to trial and possible punishment as an adult. Indeed, in the statute in effect at the time of the crime, the legislature provided for transfer hearings in the juvenile court when such a juvenile is charged with capital murder. Code § 16.1-269.1(B). In our opinion, Code § 16.1-269.1 addresses the prosecution and punishment of juveniles in as much detail as the similar Kentucky and Missouri statutes which are acknowledged in Stanford as sufficient to authorize those states to impose the death penalty upon juveniles 16 or 17 years of age. Jackson also argues that imposition of the death penalty upon a 16-year-old juvenile constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Stanford, the Court stated, [w]e discern neither a historical nor a modern societal consensus forbidding the imposition of capital punishment on any person who murders at 16 or 17 years of age. 492 U.S. at 380, 109 S.Ct. at 2980. And we discern no such consensus in Virginia, as evidenced by its statutes subjecting juveniles over the age of 14 to punishment as adults. Code §§ 16.1-269.1, -272. Therefore, we conclude that a 16-year-old person who is convicted of capital murder may be subjected to capital punishment.