An Anderson teenager will soon stand trial for the rape and murder of his 13-year-old neighbor. The defendant was 16 years old at the time of the incident, and is being charged with seven separate counts. If he is convicted of all of them, the trial's jurors and/or the judge may recommend the death penalty.\nThe only way for a community to justly respond to such brutality is through a period of deep, grave investigation and reflection. But a community in this kind of crisis would do well to keep a just perspective on the use of the death penalty. The execution of child offenders is a dubious topic of criminal justice in the United States today; the practice is legal in less than half of the states. Currently, about 70 juvenile offenders sit on death row in the United States; none of these are in Indiana. \nPut into an international context, the United States' sentencing of child offenders is revealed to be a legal anomaly. During the 1990s, only five other countries in the world were known to have executed child offenders: Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen. China, leader of the world in state-sanctioned killing, abolished the practice in 1999. In fact, the international community, respecting the special vulnerability of minors, has repeatedly expressed its common renunciation of the juvenile death sentence. Several United Nations treaties (notably, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, yet to be ratified by only the United States and Somalia) seek to stop its use. \nWe hope our state will take this opportunity to lead in the protection of children, as well as in bringing the nation closer to international consensus. We hope Indiana's death row will remain without teenage inhabitants.
Christy Campoll and Bill Breeden\nCo-coordinators\nBloomington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
