487 U.S. 815, 108 S. Ct. 2687, 101 L. Ed. 2d 702 (1988)
In January 1983, fifteen-year-old William Wayne Thompson actively participated with three older accomplices in the brutal murder of his former brother-in-law, Charles Keene.1 The victim was shot twice, had his throat, chest, and abdomen cut, suffered multiple bruises and a broken leg, and was chained to a concrete block before being thrown into a river, where his body remained for nearly four weeks.2 Each of the four participants was tried separately and sentenced to death.3
Because Oklahoma law defined Thompson as a child, the district attorney filed a petition seeking to certify him for trial as an adult, asserting that he possessed the mental capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his conduct.4 Following a hearing, the trial court determined that there were virtually no reasonable prospects for rehabilitation within the juvenile system and ordered that Thompson be tried as an adult.5
At the guilt phase of the trial, the prosecutor introduced three color photographs depicting the condition of the victim's body when recovered from the river.6 The jury convicted Thompson of first-degree murder.7 During the penalty phase, the prosecutor displayed the photographs again while urging the jury to find the murder especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and the jury imposed a sentence of death.8
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and death sentence, holding that a minor certified to stand trial as an adult could constitutionally be punished as an adult.9 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether the death penalty for a crime committed by a fifteen-year-old constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and whether the photographs' use at the penalty phase violated Thompson's constitutional rights.10
Whether the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of a person who was under 16 years of age at the time of the offense?11
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments and is interpreted according to the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.12 In determining whether a punishment is unconstitutional for a particular class of offenders, the Court examines relevant legislative enactments setting minimum ages, the behavior of juries in imposing the penalty, and whether the punishment measurably contributes to the penological goals of retribution and deterrence given the lesser culpability of the class.13
Yes. Thompson was fifteen years old at the time of his offense.14 All states treat persons under sixteen as minors for purposes such as voting, jury service, driving, and marriage without consent.15 The eighteen states that have expressly set a minimum age for capital punishment require the defendant to have attained at least sixteen years of age at the time of the offense.16
During a recent five-year period, only five persons under sixteen received death sentences out of more than eighty thousand arrests for willful criminal homicide.17 Adolescents as a class are less mature and responsible than adults, rendering their culpability lower and making the death penalty's retributive and deterrent rationales inapplicable to them.18 Application of the rule to these facts establishes that the execution of Thompson would violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of a person who was under 16 years of age at the time of the offense.19
Related opinions on this issue
Justice O'Connor concurred in the judgment on narrower grounds. She found it likely that a national consensus exists against executing those under sixteen but declined to adopt that conclusion without stronger evidence from legislative enactments.20
She instead vacated the sentence because Oklahoma's capital statute set no minimum age while separately allowing fifteen-year-olds to be tried as adults, creating an unacceptable risk that the legislature had not deliberately considered the issue.21
This narrower approach preserves the broader question for a later case with better evidence of societal standards.22
Justice Scalia dissented. He maintained that no national consensus forbids execution of fifteen-year-olds because nineteen states permit it through their general laws allowing juveniles to be tried as adults and the federal government has lowered the transfer age to fifteen.23 He rejected reliance on execution statistics and international practice, arguing that the original understanding of the Eighth Amendment permitted capital punishment for fifteen-year-olds and that legislation reflects no settled societal prohibition.24
Scalia insisted that the Court's role was to discern consensus from domestic enactments rather than impose its own views on penology or morality, and he criticized the plurality for converting statistical rarity into an absolute constitutional ban.25
Whether photographic evidence that a state court deems erroneously admitted but harmless at the guilt phase nevertheless violates a capital defendant's constitutional rights by virtue of its being considered at the penalty phase?26
The Court does not reach questions unnecessary to the disposition of the case when a death sentence is vacated on independent constitutional grounds.27
The Court does not resolve this issue.30