Five States that allowed the juvenile death penalty at the time of Stanford have abandoned it in the intervening 15 years -- four through legislative enactments and one through judicial decision....
As noted in Atkins, with respect to the States that had abandoned the death penalty for the mentally retarded since Penry, “[i]t is not so much the number of these States that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of change.”... The number of States that have abandoned capital punishment for juvenile offenders since Stanford is smaller than the number of States that abandoned capital punishment for the mentally retarded after Penry; yet we think the same consistency of direction of change has been demonstrated. Since Stanford, no State that previously prohibited capital punishment for juveniles has reinstated it. This fact, coupled with the trend toward abolition of the juvenile death penalty, carries special force in light of the general popularity of anticrime legislation[.]
The slower pace of abolition of the juvenile death penalty over the past 15 years, moreover, may have a simple explanation. When we heard Penry, only two death penalty States had already prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded. When we heard Stanford, by contrast, 12 death penalty States had already prohibited the execution of any juvenile under 18, and 15 had prohibited the execution of any juvenile under 17. If anything, this shows that the impropriety of executing juveniles between 16 and 18 years of age gained wide recognition earlier than the impropriety of executing the mentally retarded.
It is clear that States are, themselves, moving inexorably toward the universal abolition of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. Accordingly, judicial restraint compels us to stand aside as this trend we have identified today fully manifests itself in consonance with this nation's character, founded on the novel and noble principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This Court must take seriously its responsibility in our constitutional system to reverse insidious wrongs, but in the present case respondent asks us to hasten what we consider right -- snatching that power from the people of Missouri. Denying the American people the right and responsibility to govern themselves according to their collective wisdom and sense of justice and equity is something we are quite unwilling to do.
Sorry, made that last part up.
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