Conscience, supported by science, should compel state lawmakers to embrace principle over politics on this grave moral issue. ...DNA has refuted the notion that innocent people never end up on death row. Science offers compelling evidence, as well, that even the guilty acted with diminished capacity if they committed their crimes as juveniles. Recent studies of the brain show its impulse control center does not develop fully till age 20 or 21.

Lawmakers should eliminate the death penalty at least against the young, because that is the right thing to do. And isn't moral leadership what voters say they expect of their politicians these days?

Also of interest is a report by Columbia University scholars establishing empirical evidence that there is a growing national consensus against the juvenile death penalty and finding that this consensus will have an impact on the Court's decision in Rogers v. Simmons.

In 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court set aside the death sentence of Christopher Simmons, who was 17 when he was arrested for the murder of Shirley Crook. The court held that the "evolving standards of decency" embodied in the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments barred execution of persons who committed capital crimes before their 18th birthday. This decision was based in part on an emerging national consensus opposing execution of juvenile offenders: Legislatures have increasingly disallowed death sentences for persons under 18, and even where such sentences are permitted by statute, they are increasingly rarely imposed in practice.

For a good article on the difference between the adult and juvenile mind, go here.