AUSTIN - As abolitionists denounced Texas'
"diabolical appetite" for executions Monday, a state
lawmaker said he will push to change Texas law to allow children
as young as 11 to be sentenced to death.
The proposal by state Rep. Jim Pitts , R-Waxahachie , is part of a five-point plan he announced to
increase the penalties that could be leveled against violent
juvenile offenders.
"The children today are not what maybe
you and I saw on TV in (Leave It to Beaver)," said Pitts
, himself the father of an 11 -year-old.
"I can't hardly believe an 11 -year-old
would commit a crime," he added. "But . . . I think
we owe it to the victims that if an 11 -year-old goes out and
ambushes and kills," prosecutors and courts ought to be
able to keep such an offender behind bars past his 18th birthday.
Pitts said the recent killings at a Jonesboro,
Ark., school convinced him that Texas prosecutors and courts
need more latitude when dealing with young killers.
Two boys, ages 13 and 11 , have been charged
in an Arkansas juvenile court with five counts of murder and
10 counts of first-degree battery in connection with the shooting
deaths last month of four students and a teacher at their elementary
school.
As part of his juvenile justice plan for
Texas, Pitts also called for lowering the age at which a juvenile
can be certified to stand trial as an adult from 14 to 10 and
to allow juveniles to be sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole. Under current law, juveniles may receive up to 40
years for criminal actions, but under Texas' determinant sentencing
program, juvenile offenders could be released as early as their
18th birthdays.
Pitts ' spokesman Rusty Ballard said Pitts
' proposal would allow the death penalty to be used against children
as young as 11 if they are certified to stand trial as an adult
and if they are convicted of capital murder.
Current state law allows youngsters as
young as 16 to be sentenced to death but prohibits carrying out
the execution until the defendant is 17, said Ron Dusek of the
state attorney general's office.
Dusek, however, said he thinks Pitts faces
an uphill battle trying to pass his proposed legislation.
"There is probably a lot of sentiment
right now to be tough with youngsters who are getting more and
more violent, but it probably still would be a hard sell for
any legislator to sell his colleagues on it," Dusek said.
"I'm not going to tell you I'm firm
on the ages," Pitts said, "but it's a starting place."
Pitts ' announcement came the same day
that Amnesty International and several other anti-death penalty
groups released the report "The Death Penalty in Texas:
Lethal Injustice" and decried Texas' record-setting execution
pace.
Samuel Jordan of Washington, D.C., director
of Amnesty International's program to abolish the death penalty,
said Pitts ' thinking is out of sync with a growing number of
Texans, whose support for the death penalty is at a 30-year low.
"This idea of killing 11 -year-olds,
or having them charged as adults, does not answer a principal
issue in this society: How do we get the best out of our human
resources? It certainly won't be to kill the young," he
said.
"I don't think it has a great deal
of chances for success if the people of Texas urge their representatives
to enact laws that have morality," he added.
David Marshall, an attorney and author
of Amnesty International's report on capital punishment, said
Texas is "failing miserably" in upholding basic human
rights and that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has exhibited
"utter contempt" for constitutional rights through
its rulings in death cases.
"This state seems to have an almost
diabolical appetite for executions, regardless of international
human rights
standards," he added.
Although Texas law prohibits the execution
of anyone younger than 17, international rights organizations
still consider that age too young, Marshall said.
Since 1990, Texas has put to death five
condemned men who were 17 at the time of their crimes, putting
the Lone Star State and the rest of the country in the same league
with the countries of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen,
the only other countries known to have executed juvenile offenders,
Marshall said.
Jordan, meanwhile, said abolitionist groups
are embarking on a grass-roots effort to change the state's clemency
process, raise minimum standards for lawyers representing condemned
murderers and halt the execution of juveniles and the mentally
retarded.
