Juvenile offenders

Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhonibeing prepared for execution by hanging.

The death penalty for juvenile offenders (criminals aged under 18 years at the time of their crime) has become increasingly rare. Considering the Age of Majority is still not 18 in some countries, since 1990 nine countries have executed offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes: The People's Republic of China (PRC),Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria,Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States (see List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States), and Yemen.^[87] The PRC, Pakistan, the United States, Yemen and Iran have since raised the minimum age to 18.^[88][89] Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified executions since then, in several countries, of both juveniles and adults who had been convicted of committing their offenses as juveniles.^[90] The PRC does not allow for the execution of those under 18, but child executions have reportedly taken place.^[91]

Starting in 1642 within British America, an estimated 365^[92] juvenile offenders were executed by the states and federal government of the United States.^[93] The United States Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005). In addition, in 2002, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the execution of individuals with an intellectual disability, in Atkins v. Virginia. ^[94]

Between 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen were reported to have executed child offenders, the most being from Iran.^[95]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries and ratified, except for Somaliaand the United States (notwithstanding the latter's Supreme Court decisions abolishing the practice).^[96] The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has become contrary to a jus cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries are also party to the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (whose Article 6.5 also states that "Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age...").

In Japan, the minimum age for the death penalty is 18 as mandated by the internationals standards. But under Japanese law, anyone under 20 is considered a juvenile. There are three men currently on death row for crimes they committed at age 18 or 19.

Iran

Further information: Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran § Child executions in Iran

Iran, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was the world's largest executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has received international condemnation; the country's record is the focus of theStop Child Executions Campaign. But on 10 February 2012 Iran's parliament changed the controversial law of executing juveniles. In the new law, the age of 18 (solar year) would be for both genders considered and juvenile offenders will be sentenced on a separate law than of adults.^[88][89] Based on the Islamic law which now seems to have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of lunar year (11 days shorter than a solar year) were fully responsible for their crimes.^[88]

Iran accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and currently^{[ dated info ]} has roughly 140 people on death row for crimes committed as juveniles (up from 71 in 2007).^[97][98]The past executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni and Makwan Moloudzadeh became international symbols of Iran's child capital punishment and the judicial system that hands down such sentences.^[99][100]

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