The decision by a Virginia jury to spare Lee Boyd Malvo's...

The decision by a Virginia jury to spare Lee Boyd Malvo's life after finding him guilty in the 2003 Washington-area sniper rampage may hasten a movement to abolish the death penalty for juvenile killers, legal experts say. The movement had stalled, they say, because Malvo's crimes, at age 17, were so troubling. Now, though, the jury's decision to let him live may prompt reconsideration of whether killing juvenile offenders is ever proper.
Though the death penalty for murders committed by 16- and 17-year-olds remains available in a minority of states, it is being imposed with less and less frequency. Public support for it is limited. It is essentially unknown in the rest of the world. And the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to reconsider a pair of its rulings, issued in 1988 and 1989, that together banned execution of those who were under 16 when they committed their crimes but allowed it for those who were 16 or over.
Several scholars say the Malvo case may have been a factor in the Supreme Court's recent decisions not to accept cases on the issue. "Some of the speculation has been that they really didn't want to take the Malvo case out of the hands of the jury," Victor L. Streib, a law professor at Ohio Northern University, said.
But four of those justices have indicated their discomfort with the execution of juvenile criminals. One is Justice John Paul Stevens, who dissented in 2003 from a court decision not to take up the constitutionality of the practice. "Executing such offenders is a relic of the past," Stevens wrote. "We should put an end to this shameful practice." Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter joined the dissent.
Even some death penalty supporters say it is only a matter of time before the Supreme Court bans the execution of juvenile criminals. Elizabeth S. Scott, a law professor at the University of Virginia, says the jury in the Malvo case sent an important message. "The Malvo verdict should be taken as a signal that the public has little enthusiasm for executing juveniles," Scott said, "even for the most horrendous of crimes, and that people understand that young offenders are less culpable than adults."
As measured by opinion polls, public support for the death penalty itself remains strong. But it has dipped lately. A recent Gallup poll measured it at 64 per cent, down 6 to 8 percentage points from a year earlier and, says the Death Penalty Information Centre, an opponent of capital punishment, the lowest level in 25 years. Legal experts say possible explanations include public discomfort over a number of cases in which DNA and other evidence has exonerated death row prisoners, and the effect of Governor George Ryan's mass commutation of 171 death sentences in Illinois on the ground he could not be sure innocent people were not among those condemned. Support for the juvenile death penalty is much weaker than for capital punishment overall; it ranged from 21 to 38 per cent in a series of recent polls.
The Missouri Supreme Court recently ruled the execution of juvenile offenders was unconstitutional. That, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre, made Missouri the 17th state to ban the practice among the 38 that allow capital punishment. (to be continued)