AUSTIN - Gov. George W. Bush said Tuesday
he opposes a fellow
Republican's proposal to allow the death penalty at age 17 for
Texans
who are as young as 11 years old when they commit capital murder.
Bush said the suggestion by Rep. Jim Pitts , R-Waxahachie , to lower
the minimum age for eligibility for capital punishment from 16
to 11 is
not right for Texas. (The state currently allows 16-year-olds
to be
sentenced to death, but their executions can't be carried out
until they
are 17.)
Pitts ' proposal, which could be debated
in the 1999 legislative
session, was prompted by the recent fatal school shootings in
Arkansas.
"I don't think the death penalty ought
to be administered to 11
-year-old children," Bush said flatly when asked if he would
veto Pitts
' proposal if it gets through the Legislature.
"I can understand why people are concerned
about the Jonesboro, Ark.,
situation. I can understand the emotional reaction. I just happen
to
believe that having looked at the issue long and hard, the current
(law)
is appropriate," he said.
Pitts , a lawyer serving his third term
in the Texas House, went public
with his capital offense proposal on Monday. He also suggested
lowering
the age for trying juveniles as adults from 14 to 10, but Bush
seemed to
rule out any change in that threshold.
The governor said he examined both the
death penalty and certification
issues in 1994 when he made juvenile justice reform a priority
for the
1995 legislative session.
"Not only did I think the death penalty
was appropriate at 17, I
thought the appropriate age at which a child should be tried
as an adult
was 14. It's what I campaigned on. That's what became law. And
I haven't
changed my mind," Bush said.
Pitts ' proposals were among several he
outlined to crack down on
violent juvenile offenders. He said the state "must be prepared
to deal
with it" if Texas experiences a deadly attack like the one
attributed to
11 - and 13-year-old boys in Arkansas.
"As witnessed in Jonesboro, Ark.,
juvenile laws are inadequate to
handle children who commit crimes at such an early age,"
Pitts said
Monday. He added that under current Texas law, juveniles sentenced
to
the maximum of 40 years confinement "may be released as
early as their
18th birthday."
On Tuesday, Pitts said he will forge ahead
with his proposal, despite
Bush's disapproval.
"If nothing else, this just brings
it up so we can talk about it. We've
got to do something to send a message to our kids that they can't
do
these kinds of crimes," Pitts said.
Pitts emphasized he has no intention of
lowering the age at which the
death penalty is carried out, only the age of eligibility.
Texas is among 15 states that have death
row inmates who arrived as
juveniles. Amnesty International estimates that around the nation
58
offenders - including 25 in Texas - await execution for slayings
committed as juveniles.
So far, of the 147 executions in Texas
since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976, the youngest inmate to be given a lethal
injection
was 24 years old.
At least nine men, five of them Texans,
have been put to death for
murders committed as juveniles, according to Amnesty International.
All
of them committed their crimes at age 17, but their ages upon
execution
ranged from 24 to 33.
