Execution of youths under 18 subject of hearing

AUSTIN -- Prosecutors recounted gruesome details of kidnappings and murders committed by teenagers. Other witnesses declared that Texas is notorious worldwide for allowing people under 18 to be executed.

Lawyers, legal scholars, psychologists and religious groups weighed in with opinions before the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee today about bills that would ban capital punishment for youths who were under 18 when they committed their crimes.

An assistant district attorney from Harris County, which sends the largest number of people to death row in Texas, told about a murderer who committed his crime one day before turning 18.

"I doubt that one day made any difference in his mental maturity," said prosecutor Don Smith.

State law calls for 17 year olds to be considered adults in criminal court proceedings.

But Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, a sponsor of one of the bills under consideration, said a person under 18 can't vote, buy a house, purchase alcohol or do many other things in society, including serve in the Texas Legislature. So those youths shouldn't be considered adults when it comes to capital punishment, he said.

University of Texas law professor Jordan Steiker spoke in favor of the bills. He said it has become rare, outside of Texas, for a juvenile to be executed.

Fewer than 24 such executions have been documented outside of the United States in the past 15 years, and all in six countries: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, he said.

Texas law should acknowledge the differences between adults and children, Steiker said.

"When we execute children, we communicate our sense that youth is not special. We speak to all of our children, not just those who commit crimes," he said.

Psychologist Michael Lindsay of Dallas, who spoke in support of the bills, testified about the physiological brain development of youths. He said the part of the brain that governs decision-making is not completely developed in adolescence.

However, prosecutors from Harris, Dallas and Walker counties told of what they said were premeditated murders committed by people under 18.

"What our law does now is allow a jury to look at an individual," said David Weeks, district attorney for Walker County. "Not all 17-year-olds are the same. That's why we have individual justice in this state."

Prosecutor John Rolater, representing the Dallas County district attorney's office, told of the case of Toronto Patterson, who was executed last year at age 24 for a murder he committed when he was 17. He was convicted of killing a 3-year-old cousin at her Dallas home. Patterson also was accused of killing two other people that day.

Among the groups showing up to support the proposed legislation banning executions of people under 18 were the Texas Catholic Conference; Southwest Regional Juvenile Defenders Center; and Education Austin, representing assorted teachers' groups.

A spokeswoman for the Juvenile Death Penalty Initiative testified that since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, Texas has led the nation with 13 executions of people who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. Virginia is second with three, she said.