Opinion ID: 1191763
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Is defendant's age (17) a constitutional bar to his death sentence?

Text: Defendant acknowledges that the U.S. Supreme Court held in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 380, 109 S.Ct. 2969, 2980, 106 L.Ed.2d 306 (1989), that the death penalty may constitutionally be imposed on sixteen- or seventeen-year-old offenders, but contends that a national consensus has evolved that reflects a trend toward imposing a statutory minimum age of eighteen for death penalty eligibility. In our recent case of State v. Jackson, 186 Ariz. 20, 918 P.2d 1038 (1996), we observed that no national consensus of the type alleged by defendant exists and expressly stated that we have found `no constitutional authority or statutory provision [that] prohibits the sentencing of a 16-year-old to death.' Id. at 25, 918 P.2d at 1043 (quoting State v. Valencia, 124 Ariz. 139, 141, 602 P.2d 807, 809 (1979)).