Yokamon Hearn, 33, was executed this year for a crime committed when he was 19. Being the 6th person executed in Texas in 2012, he was also the first person in Texas to receive the single lethal injection of the sedative pentobarbital. According to Brian Evans of Amnesty International, his trial may have gone differently if he were 2 years younger:
Yokamon Hearn was a teenager at the time of his crime, but not a juvenile. Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of Child lays out the international standard for not executing juvenile offenders, defined as those who were under 18 at the time of the crime. (The U.S. is the only country except for Somalia that has not ratified this treaty...
18 and 19 and 20 year-olds are not considered responsible enough decision makers to drink legally, yet they can be held fully responsible for their crimes and sentenced to the ultimate, irreversible punishment of death. On he one hand, we seek to protect our youth from their immaturity; on the other we punish (and even kill) them for it…
Despite extensive scientific evidence of the differences between youth and adults related to culpability, decision making, and susceptibility to peer pressure, U.S. states continue to execute people for crimes committed when they were teenagers. Since 1982 Texas alone has killed at least 70 people who were aged 17, 18 or 19 at the time of their crime. This practice needs to stop immediately.
What separates an adult from an adolescent? If there's a double standard on things like drinking alcohol or renting a car, should there be a single standard for criminal responsibility?
