![]() ![]() ![]() Approximately 80% of murder victims aged 13-16 are killed in gun incidents. Moreover, the settings in which adolescents are murdered are materially different from those in which infants and young children die. However, as the use of this type of aggravator by other states shows, that reasoning is generally applied with respect to infants and children, not adolescents. The typical justification for allowing the death penalty for the murder of a child is that children are a particularly vulnerable and defenseless class of victims, deserving of special protection under the law. The defendant knew or reasonably should have known the victim was less than 17 years of age Murder victim was under the age of 14 and the defendant was 21 years of age of older The person murders an individual under 10 years of age The murder was committed against a person less than 12 years of age and then defendant was 18 years of age or older Any murder is wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman if the victim is less than thirteen years of age The offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim. The murder of a child 11 years or younger ![]() The victim was a child under 12 years of age The victim of the intentional homicide was under the age of 14 years old The offender in the commission of the offense, purposefully caused the death of another who was under thirteen years of age at the time of the commission of the offense and the defendant committed the offense with prior calculation and design The murder as committed upon a person less than 14 years of age The victim of the murder was less than 12 years of age The murdered individual was under 12 years of age and the death resulted from exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty The victim of the capital felony was a person less than 12 years of age The victim was a child 14 years of age or younger, and the murder was committed by an individual who is at least 4 years older than the victim The capital murder was committed against a person whom the defendant knew or reasonably should have known was especially vulnerable to the attack because the person was 12 years of age or younger The defendant was an adult at the time the offense was committed or was tried as an adult and the murdered person was under fifteen years of age or was seventy years of age or older States Authorizing the Death Penalty for Killing a Child State 4ġ Arkansas, Delaware (prior to judicial abolition), Florida, Illinois (prior to abolition), Indiana, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee.Ģ Nevada, New Jersey (prior to abolition), Oregon, and Virginia (prior to abolition).Ĥ Arizona, younger than age 15 Connecticut, younger than age 16 (prior to abolition), and Wyoming (defendant reasonably should have known the victim was younger than age 17). 3 Only three states authorize capital prosecution based upon the victim being 14 years old or older. 2 Two states require that the victim be younger than age 13, and one requires that the victim be younger than age 10. 1 The next most common age, used by four current or former death penalty states, is that the victim be under age 14. The most common of the age-of-victim requirements by far-used by nine current or former death penalty states-is that the victim must be under age 12. As of January 2022, fourteen states authorized the death penalty for the murder of a child victim, and five states that later abolished the death penalty also had a child-victim aggravating circumstance. About half of all death penalty states include the murder of a child as an aggravating circumstance that can subject a defendant to the death penalty. ![]()
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