Current Interpretation

According to the death penalty information center, on May 5, 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that juveniles (people under the age of 18) cannot be sentenced to death penalty for the crimes they committed. This law also applies to people that are over the age of 18 currently but their crime was committed when they were underage. One of the main reasons why this law was pursued was because it was violating several international treaties most importantly the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The U.S. Supreme court also felt a great deal of international pressure where everyone was fully against juveniles sentenced to the death penalty. The juvenile justice system varies from state to state, for example currently in Nevada all juveniles have the right to and are required to have a juvenile court hearing before being transferred if necessary to the adult criminal court according to NCSL (National Conference of State Legislators.) In Vermont the extended age of delinquency jurisdiction is age 20, the usual age bracket of the juvenile justice system in Vermont is 10-17 compared to Texas which is 10-16 instead according to NCJJ State Juvenile Justice Profiles. Generally the basic current laws concerning the juvenile justice system are children under the age of 7 cannot be tried even in juvenile court,  children 7-15 are main candidates for the juvenile court, and children ages 12-18 can be tried in the adult criminal court if their crime is extremely severe such as murder, but if homicide is not involved typically they will be tried in juvenile court according to www.criminal.findlaw.com. Sometime juveniles are tried in adult criminal court for crimes such as armed robbery and rape which are also severe crimes but not as harsh as murder, so minors who have committed armed robbery and rape have a better chance at being tried in juvenile court.  

 http://www.ncsl.org/?tabid=19713

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/u-s-supreme-court-roper-v-simmons-no-03-633

http://70.89.227.250:8080/stateprofiles/

http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimes/juvenile-justice/when-minor-commits-crime.html