PUCL Bulletin, April 2001
Amnesty International:
Children and the Death Penalty; Executions Worldwide Since
1990
1. Introduction
The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18
is prohibited under international human rights law, yet some countries still
execute child offenders. Such executions are few compared to the total number
of executions in the world. Their significance goes beyond their number and
calls into question the commitment of the executing states to respect international
standards.
Since 1990 Amnesty International has documented execution of child offenders
in seven countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, the United States of America (USA) and Yemen. At least two of
these countries, Pakistan and Yemen have since changed their laws to exclude
the practice. The country, which has carried out the greatest number of known
executions in the USA.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases as a violation
of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or
degrading punishment. As steps towards total abolition of the death penalty
it supports measures which limit the scoop of capital punishment. These include
laws which exclude the execution of child offenders people convicted of crimes
committed under the age of 18.
2. International standards
The use of the death penalty against child offenders is prohibited under leading
international instruments relating to human rights and the conduct of armed
hostilities. The relevant texts are as follows:
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): "Sentence
of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen
years of age…" (Article 6(5)) Convention on the Rights of the Child:
"Neither capital punishment not life imprisonment without possibility of
release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years
of age…"(Article 37(a)). American Convention on Human Rights: "Capital
punishment shall not be imposed upon persons who, at the time the crime was
committed, were under 18 years of age…"(Article 4(5)). Geneva Convention
relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War 12 August 1949
(Fourth Geneva Convention): 'In any case, the death penalty may not be pronounced
against a protected persons who was under eighteen years of age at the time
of the offence" (Article 68). Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions
of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International
Armed Conflicts (Additional Protocol I): "The death penalty for an offence
related to the armed conflict shall not be executed on persons who had not attained
the age of eighteen years at the time the offence was committed" (Article
77(5)) Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and
relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Additional
Protocol II): "The death penalty shall not be pronounced on persons who
were under the age of eighteen years at the time of the offence…"
(Article 6(4)).
Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights to Those Facing the Death Penalty
(UN Economic and Social Council resolution 1984/50, adopted on 25 May 1984 and
endorsed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in resolution 39/118 of
14 December 1984): "Persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission
of the crime shall not be sentenced to death…".
The first six instruments cited above are international treaties, binding on
all states parties to them. The Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights
of Those Facing the Death Penalty ("ECOSOC Safeguards") are not legally
binding but were endorsed by the UN General Assembly without a vote, a sign
of a strong consensus among nations that their provisions should be observed.
The nearly universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
is an especially strong sign of an international consensus that the death penalty
must not be used against child offenders. As of October 2000, 191 states were
parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Fourth Geneva Convention
also is very widely ratified; 188 states were parties to it as of October 2000,
pointing to a consensus that the death penalty must not be used against civilian
child offenders in occupied territories who are protected by that convention.
3. Opposition at the United Nations
As mentioned above, the UN General Assembly endorsed the ECOSOC Safeguards stating
that people below 18 at the time of the crime must not be sentenced to death
in 1984. Since then there have been many UN resolutions emphasizing the importance
of the ECOSOC Safeguards and the prohibition of using the death penalty against
child offenders.
In 1997 the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted resolution 1997/92 expressing
deep concern "that several countries impose the death penalty in disregard
of the limitations provided for the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child". The Commission urged
"all States that still maintain the death penalty to comply fully with
their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, notably not to impose the death
penalty… for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age",
and called upon all such states to observe the ECOSOC Safeguards. The same language
was included in resolution 2000/65, adopted by the Commission on Human Rights
in April 2000.
In August 2000 the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human
Rights adopted resolution 2000/17 on "The Death Penalty in Relation to
Juvenile Offenders", condemning unequivocally the use of the death penalty
against people under 18 at the time of the offence and affirming that such use
"is contrary to customary international law". It called on states
that retain the death penalty for child offenders to change their laws as soon
as possible and in the meantime "to remind their judges that the imposition
of the death penalty against such offenders is in violation of international
law".
4. National Law and practice
One hundred and fifteen states whose laws still provide for the death penalty
for at least some offences either have provisions in their laws which exclude
the use of the death penalty against child offenders, of may be presumed to
exclude such use by virtue of becoming parties to the International Covenant
to Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child or
the American Convention on Human Rights without entering a reservation to the
relevant articles of these treaties. One country, the USA, ratified the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1992 with a reservation reserving
for itself the right to use the death penalty against child offenders. Eleven
other states parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
formally objected to the US reservation.
In 1999 the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted resolution 1999/61 urging
all states that still maintain the death penalty "not to enter any new
reservations under article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights which may be contrary to the object and the purpose of the Covenant and
to withdraw any such existing reservations, given that article 6 of the Covenant
enshrines the minimum rules for the protection of the right to life and the
generally accepted standards in this area". The same request was included
in resolution 2000/65, adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in April 2000.
Despite the international standards, a number of countries still have laws which
permit the imposition of death sentences on child offenders in at least some
circumstances. Most of these countries set age limits of 16 or 17, but a few
set lower ages.
Since the beginning of 1994 at least five countries have changed their laws
to eliminate the use of the death penalty against child offenders: Barbados,
Pakistan, Yemen, Zimbabwe and China.
As detailed below, seven countries are reported to have executed child offenders
since 1990. Five of them have done so in violation of their obligations as parties
to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and five of them
in violation of their obligations as parties to the Convention on the Rights
of the Child. However, two of these countries, Yemen and Pakistan, have since
eliminated the use of the death penalty against child offenders. One other,
Saudi Arabia, may also have decided to so do so.
5. Executions of child offender since 1990
Country-by-country information on executions of child offenders since 1990 follows:
Democratic Republic of Congo
Despite of declaration in December 1999 by the Minister for Human Rights that
the government was exercising a moratorium on executions, on 15 January 2000
a 14-year-old child soldier named Kasongo was executed within 30 minutes of
his trial by the Cour d'ordre militaire, Military Order Court. He and four other
soldiers had been found guilty of murdering a driver. Those convicted by the
Cour-d'ordre militaire can only appeal to the President for clemency but with
execution taking place so soon after sentencing it is doubtful that the President
had time to consider appeals.
Iran
Since the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, thousands of prisoners
have been executed, many after summary trials. Amnesty International has documented
several executions of child offenders since 1990.
Kaxzem Shirafkhan, aged 17, was executed for murder in 1990.
In his report to the 1993 session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the
UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions stated
that he had received information that three young men, two aged 17 and one aged
16, were executed on 29 September 1992.
On 24 October 1999 Ebrahim Qorbanzadeh, aged 17, was hanged in Rasht for murder.
On 14 January 2000 Jasem Abrahim, aged 17, was publicly hanged in Gonaveh after
being convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder of an 18-month-old child,
according to the daily Jumhouri-e Eslami newspaper.
Nigeria
Chidiebore Onuoha, aged 17, was executed on 31 July 1997. He was 15 years old
at the time of the armed robbery for which he was executed.
Pakistan
Pakistan ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. However,
on 15 November 1992, 11 persons were hanged in Punjab province, including a
boy reportedly aged 17.
On 30 September 1997 Shamun Masih was hanged in Hyderabad for an armed robbery
and triple murder committed in 1998 when he was reportedly 14 years old.
The Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, which abolishes the death penalty
for people under 18 at the time of the offence, entered into force on 1 July
2000. The Ordinance does not make reference to some 50 persons currently under
sentence of death who were below the age of 18 at the time of the offence, nor
does it provide for a review of such cases.
Saudi Arabia
In his report to the 1993 session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the
UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions stated
that he had received information that a Shi'a Muslim, Sadeq Mal-Allah, had been
beheaded on 3 September 1992 in the eastern town of Al-Qatif. He was reportedly
sentenced to death at the age of 17 on charges relating to blasphemy after a
trial at which he was denied a lawyer.
Saudi Arabia became a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in
1996. In its initial report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on
the measures taken to give effect to the rights recognized in the Convention,
the Saudi Arabian government stated that "capital punishment cannot be
imposed on children who have not attained the age of majority in accordance
with Islamic law". It is not clear from this statement whether Saudi Arabia's
law is consistent with the prohibition of use of the death against child offenders
under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Amnesty International has sought
clarification of this question from the Saudi Arabian government but has not
yet received any reply.
United States of America
The country that has carried out more documented executions of child offenders
than any other, since 1990, is the USA.
Sixteen US states were holding a total of 83 child offenders on death row as
of October 2000. Fourteen executions of child offenders have been carried out
in six states since 1990. One of those executed was 16 at the time of the offence;
all of the others were 17. Seven of the executions were in Texas, the state
that has carried out the largest total number of executions of prisoners since
the resumptions of executions in the USA in 1977-233 up to 1 November 2000.
The background of the majority of the child offenders executed since 1990 was
one of serious motional or material deprivation. Many were regular users of
drugs or alcohols with lower than average intelligence. Some had organic brain
damage. Some had poor or inexperienced legal counsel. Highly relevant information
was withheld at their trials due to incompetence or inexperience on the part
of their lawyers.
Brief details of the 14 cases are given below. The prisoner's race or ethnic
grouping and the state are indicated in square brackets:
Dalton Prejean (black, Louisiana), sentenced to death in 1978 and executed in
1990. He was 17 years old at the time of the murder of a police officer in 1977.
Prejean was tried before an all-white jury and represented by a court-appointed
lawyer. At his trial, evidence was presented of intellectual impairment. His
IQ was measured at 71. He was abandoned by his mother at the age of two weeks
and was raised by a relative who was reportedly violent. From the age of 13
he spent time to institutions and was diagnosed as suffering from various mental
illnesses including schizophrenia. At age 14 he was committed to an institution
for killing a tax driver. Medical opinion recommended long-term hospitalization
under strict supervision. He was nevertheless released after three years, reportedly
because of lack of funds to keep him institutionalised. Despite appeals for
clemency in 1989 and 1990 he was electrocuted on 18 May 1990, 12 years after
being sentenced to death.
Johnny Garrett (white, Texas) executed in 1992. He was convicted of the murder
in 1981 of a 76-year-old white nun. He had a long history of mental illness
and was severely sexually and physically abused as a child. This history was
not revealed at the trial. Between 1986 and 1992, three medical experts reported
that he was chronically psychotic and brain-damaged as a result of head injuries
sustained as a child. Appeals for clemency from Pope John Paul II and from the
Franciscan Sisters religious community to which the murdered nun belonged were
to no avail and Johnny Garrett was executed by lethal injection on 11 February
1992.
Curtis Harris (black, Texas), executed in 1993. He was 17 years old at the time
of the crime the murder of a white man in 1978. He was one of nine children
brought up in extreme poverty. He was regularly beaten as a child by an alcoholic
father. At the trial, three black jurors were excluded; his jury was all white.
He was sentenced to death in 1979. His conviction was overturned, he was retried
and sentenced to death again in 1983. In 1986 he was examined by Dr. Dorothy
Otnow Lewis, Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine,
who found that he had a low IQ(77) and had organic brain damage resulting from
beatings suffered as a child. None of the information about his upbringing or
mental capacity was raised by his lawyer at the original trial. His appeals
against the sentence failed and he was executed on 1 July 1993.
Frederick Lashley (black, Missouri), executed in 1993. He was the first child
offender to be executed in Missouri for 60 years when he was subjected to lethal
injection on 28 July 1993. He was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white
jury in 1982 for the murder of his cousin in 1981. He was under the influence
of drugs at the time of the killing. He had been abandoned at a young age by
his mother and had been brought up by relative. He began drinking alcohol heavily
at the age of 10 and at the time of the crime was homeless. At his trial a lawyer
who had never previously acted in capital case represented him.
Christopher Burger (white, Georgia) executed in 1993. He was the first child
offender to be executed in Georgia under its current death penalty law. He was
17 at the time of the murder, committed in 1977, for which he was convicted.
He was sentenced to death in 1978. The sentence was vacated but a new sentencing
hearing was held and in 1979 he was again sentenced to death. Fourteen years
later he was executed by electrocution.
At his trial a lawyer who had not previously acted in a capital case represented
him. Although US juries are required to consider mitigating factors in deciding
whether to impose a death sentence, Christopher Burger's lawyer did not present
mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearings in either 1978 or 1979. the jury
was therefore not told that Christopher Burger had a low IQ, that he was mentally
ill and brain damaged from physical abuse received as a child, or that he suffered
from a highly disturbed, unstable upbringing and had attempted suicide at the
age of 15.
In 1989, Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis of the New York University School of Medicine
examined Christopher Burger and found organic brain impairment and mental illness.
He was scheduled to be executed on 18 December 1990 but received a last-minute
stay of execution pending an appeal based on the issue of his mental competence
at the time of the crime. The appeal failed and he was executed on 7 December
1993.
Ruben Cantu (Latino, Texas), sentenced to death in 1984 and executed in 1993.
He was 17 at the time of the offence. He was represented by an inexperienced
lawyer, had a troubled family upbringing and was of limited intellectual capacity.
Joseph John Cannon (white, Texas), executed in 1998 for the murder of Anne Walsh
in 1977. He was sentenced to death in 1980. The conviction was overturned in
1981. He was retried and sentenced to death again in 1982. At the age of four,
Joseph Cannon was hit by a truck and left hyperactive, with a head injury and
a speech impediment. Unable to function in the classroom, he was expelled from
school at the age of six or seven and received no other formal education. He
turned to glue sniffing and other solvent abuse, and at age 10 he was diagnosed
as suffering from organic brain damage. Suffering from severe depression, he
attempted suicide at the age of 15. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and borderline
mentally retarded. From the age of seven up to the time of the murder for which
he was sentenced to death, Joseph Cannon suffered repeated and severe sexual
abuse from male relatives. So brutal and abusive was his upbringing that Joseph
Cannon thrived better on death row, where he learned to read and write, than
he ever had in his home environment. By the time he was killed, Joseph Cannon
had spent more than half his life on death row.
Robert Anthony Carter (black, Texas) sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder
of Sylvia Reyes in 1981 and executed in 1998. Of six children in one of the
poorest families of an impoverished Houston neighbourhood, Robert Carter was
abused throughout his childhood. His mother and stepfather would whip and beat
the children with wooden switches, belts and electric cords. At the age of five
he was hit on the head with a brick. At the age of 10 he was hit so hard on
the head with a baseball bat that the bat broke. He received no medical attention
for these injuries. In an incident shortly before the murder of Sylvia Reyes,
Robert Carter was shot in the head by his brother, the bullet lodging near his
temple. He afterwards suffered seizures and fainting spells.
At his trial, the prosecution presented its entire case. At the sentencing,
during which the prosecutor told the jury that life imprisonment would be like
a "slap on the wrist", the jury was not invited to consider as mitigating
evidence Robert Carter's age at the time of the crime; the fact that he was
borderline mentally retarded, brain damaged and had suffered brutal physical
abuse as a child; or that this was his first offence. The jurors took 10 minutes
to decide that he should die.
Dwayne Allen Wright (black, Virginia), sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder
of Saba Tekle in 1989 and executed in 1998. Deayne Wright grew up in a poor
family in a deprived neighborhood of the US capital, Washington DC, rife with
criminal drugs activity, where he witnessed habitual gun violence and murder.
From the age of four, Swayne Wright lost his father to incarceration in prison.
His mother, who suffered from mental illness, was often unemployed for long
periods. When he was 10, his 23 year old half brother, to whom he was very close,
was murdered. After this Dwayne Wright developed serious emotional problems.
He did poorly at school. Between the ages of 12 and 17, he spent periods in
hospital and juvenile detention facilities. During this time he was treated
for "major depression with psychotic episodes"; his mental capacity
was evaluated as borderline retarded, his verbal ability as retarded; and doctors
found signs of organic brain damage.
The American Bar Association was among the organisations which appealed for
clemency for Swayne Wright, stating that his proposed execution "demeans
our system of justice" and that "a borderline mentally retarded child
simply cannot be held to the same degree of culpability and accountability for
the actions to which we would hold an adult".
Sean Sellers (white, Oklahoma), sentenced to death in 1981 for shooting his
mother and stepfather and a shopkeeper and executed in 1999. He was the first
person since 1959 to be executed in the USA for a crime committed at 16 years
of age. Born to a 16 year old mother and raised by various relatives, he was
exposed to violence and physical abuse from an early age and became involved
with drugs and Satanism. In post-conviction examinations, he was found to be
chronically psychotic and to have symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and other
major mood disorders. He was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder in
1992. On death row he became very religious and engaged in writing and artwork
with a view to helping others learn from his experience. One of his trial jurors
appealed for clemency, recalling that the jury never believed that he would
be executed but that they feared his early release if they sentenced him to
life imprisonment would have meant at least 15 years in prison before he would
become eligible for parole.
Chris Thomas (white, Virginia), sentenced to death in 1991 and executed in 2000.
After his adoptive parents died when he was 12, Chris Thomas became involved
in petty offending and drug abuse. Psychological reports described him as an
isolated, angry, depressed, alienated teenager. His intense relationship with
14 year old Jessica Wiseman culminated in their plan to kill her parents. Without
an adult present, while still under the effects of alcohol and drugs, and having
slept for only two hours in the previous 40, Thomas confessed to both murders.
He later said he had not fired the second fatal shot at the mother, whose killing
resulted in Chris Thomas' death sentence (he received a life sentence for the
murder of the father). The Jury never heard evidence that Jessica Wiseman may
have fired this shot. She was released in 1997 at the age of 21.
Steve Roach (white, Virginia), executed in 2000. He had been sentenced to death
in 1995 for the 1993 shooting of
Mary Ann Hughes, his only recorded act of violence. Born into a family with
frequently absent parents, Roach dropped out of school at 14 because they wanted
him to do chores. An expert testified at trial that Roach had poor impulse control
and was particularly immature as a result of the lack of structure in his home
life. Arguing that Roach was a future danger, the prosecution cited his parole
violation in possessing a shotgun as a sign of his future dangerousness, despite
the fact that no adult, including the police, had seen fit to remove it from
him.
Glen McGinnis (black, Texas) sentenced to death in 1992 and executed in 2000.
Glen McGinnis was born to a mother who was addicted to crack cocaine and who
worked out of their one bedroom flat as a prostitute. He suffered repeated physical
abuse at her hands and those of his stepfather, who raped him when he was nine
or 10. He ran away from home at the age of 11 and lived on the streets of Houston
where he engaged in shoplifting and car theft. He was sentenced to death by
an all-white jury for the shooting of Leta Ann Wilkerson, white, during a robbery
in 1990. Various juvenile correctional officials testified that he was non aggressive
even in the face of taunts about his homosexuality from other inmates and that
he had the capacity to flourish in the structured environment of prison.
Gary Graham (lack Texas) sentenced to death in 1981 and executed in 2000 amid
massive national and international media attention. He was born to a mentally
ill mother and an alcoholic father and was exposed to violence from an early
age in the poor neighborhood of Houston where he grew up. He became involved
in drug and alcohol abuse and by the age on 15 had a juvenile record for thefts.
In 1981, aged 17, he was under arrest for a string of armed robberies and aggravated
assaults when he was charged with the murder of Bobby Lambert, white, the crime
for which a jury of 11 whites and one black sentenced him to die. He was represented
by lawyers too busy to defend a client they apparently assumed was guilty because
of the other crimes to which he admitted. Their failure meant that Gary Graham
was convicted on the testimony of a single eyewitness whose credibility they
never scrutinized. Gary Graham's lawyers failed to question suggestive police
techniques used in obtaining her identification of Graham. They neglected to
interview other, better-placed witnesses, none of whom identified him as the
gunman and several of whom said he was not the gunman. No physical evidence
linked Gary Graham to the shooting. The jury never heard forensic evidence that
a gun found on him at the time of his arrest could not have fired the fatal
bullet.
No hearing was ever been held into whether Graham's 19 years claim of innocence
was supported by such evidence. Two of the trial jurors signed affidavits that
they would not have voted for death if they had been presented with such evidence.
Yemen
A 13 year old boy, Nasser Munir Nasser al-Kirbi, was publicly hanged in the
capital, Sana'a on 21 July 1993, alongwith three men. They had been convicted
of murder and highway robbery.
In 1994 the minimum age for the use of the death penalty was raised to 18 years
at the time of the offence in the Penal Code (Article 31 of Law 12)
6. Conclusions
It is now very widely accepted that child offenders must not be subjected to
the death penalty. Almost all states are now parties to international treaties
which prohibit the sentencing to death of child offenders. A very few states
continue to execute child offenders, but such executions are rare and are only
a tiny fraction of the total number of executions carried out worldwide each
year. Amnesty International considers the exclusion of child offenders from
the death penalty is so widely accepted in law and practice that it has become
a principle of customary international law, binding on all states regardless
of what international instruments they have or have not ratified.
Amnesty International urges all governments to case all executions and abolish
the death penalty in law. Pending abolition of the death penalty, a minimum
age of 18 should be provided for in legislation, in conformity with this principle.