NationStates Jolt Archive


What is the minimum age...

Quagmus
24-02-2006, 00:05
...to be eligible for the death penalty? In those countries that still do it, China, Saudi-Arabia, etc.

edit: Should there be a minimum age? After all, a criminal is just that, right?
Fass
24-02-2006, 00:09
They tend not to have a set age - killing children doesn't seem to phase them.
Free Farmers
24-02-2006, 00:23
...to be eligible for the death penalty? In those countries that still do it, China, Saudi-Arabia, etc.

edit: Should there be a minimum age? After all, a criminal is just that, right?
You do realize the USA still has the death penalty in some places right? They are a pretty big one to leave out, not that we execute very many people but we do have capital punishment. We executed I think 68 people last year, which is very close to China, who executed just under 10,000 I believe :D

They tend not to have a set age - killing children doesn't seem to phase them.
I hope you are talking about the example countries. In the USA (Which has the death penalty) killing children is not something we like to do. Well unless they are poor. Or a minority. ;) But that's not the point, when you look at rich, white, christian children, we most definitely do not execute them! :p
Neu Leonstein
24-02-2006, 00:24
If the state considers you to not be responsible enough to drink, it's ridiculous to think that you could be responsible enough to face the death penalty.

For the US:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=27&did=203

For the rest of the world:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-facts-eng
Eight countries since 1990 are known to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. China, Pakistan and Yemen have raised the minimum age to 18 in law, and Iran is reportedly in the process of doing so. The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003).

Amnesty International recorded four executions of child offenders in 2004 - one in China and three in Iran.

Eight child offenders have been executed in Iran since January 2005.
Whereyouthinkyougoing
24-02-2006, 00:29
Hm, I can't seem to find a good resource online. So here's a Wikipedia link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Juvenile_capital_punishment) which tells you that, of all the countries with the death penalty, in fact only 6 nations have (or rather practice) the death penalty for juveniles:

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Iran.

Juvenile here means under 18. As for the exact age by country, you'd likely just have to google.


Of course, until last year, the US was part of that very exclusive club:
In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that the death penalty cannot be applied to persons who were under age 18 at the time of commission of the crime. That decision resulted in 72 convicted murderers being taken off death row. In the US and ancestral political bodies since 1642, an estimated 364 juvenile offenders have been executed by states and the federal government.
Abdeus
24-02-2006, 00:33
Well, I know China forces women in custody to get abortions because it's illegal to put a pregnant woman to death. Which brings me to my Amnesty International rant: Amnesty is a stupid, stupid organization. So they won't support a journalist on death row convicted of murdering a police officer who has (had) witnesses testifying in his favor, ballistics tests that prove that it wasn't his gun that killed this police officer; however they do support this woman:
Ma Weihua, a woman facing the death penalty on drugs charges, was reportedly forced to undergo an abortion in police custody in February, apparently so that she could be put to death “legally” as Chinese law prevents the execution of pregnant women. She had been detained in January in possession of 1.6kg of heroin. Her trial, which began in July, was suspended after her lawyer provided details of the forced abortion. She was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in November. http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/chn-summary-eng

1.6 kg is approximately equal to 3.52 lbs, by the way
Quagmus
24-02-2006, 00:34
...
... In the USA (Which has the death penalty) killing children is not something we like to do. Well unless they are poor. Or a minority. ;) But that's not the point, when you look at rich, white, christian children, we most definitely do not execute them! :p

Why don't you like to execute rich, christian, white children?
Undelia
24-02-2006, 00:35
You do realize the USA still has the death penalty in some places right? They are a pretty big one to leave out, not that we execute very many people but we do have capital punishment. We executed I think 68 people last year, which is very close to China, who executed just under 10,000 I believe :D
I see someone watches the Colbert Report.:D
Fass
24-02-2006, 00:36
however they do support this woman

Why is it stupid to support that woman?
SoWiBi
24-02-2006, 00:37
USA:

The minimal age is set at 18 since last year.
Before 2005, of the 38 U.S. states that allow capital punishment:

19 states and the federal government had set a minimum age of 18,
Five states had set a minimum age of 17, and
14 states had explicitly set a minimum age of 16, or were subject to the Supreme Court's imposition of that minimum.
(source: wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States#Ages_of_condemned_prisoners))

Since January 1990 Amnesty International has documented 46 executions of child offenders in eight countries– the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the USA, China and Yemen. The USA carried out 19 executions – more than any other country.
(source: Amnesty (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-children-stats-eng))
(you'll have a table with the ages of the kids executed on that site. while I couldn't find legal minimum ages, you'll find two of them to have ben 13 years old)
Genaia3
24-02-2006, 00:37
In Iran the age for the death penalty is 16 for boys and 9 for girls. Females in Iran will generally be raped before the execution so that they will not be virgins and will not go to paradise.
Undelia
24-02-2006, 00:38
In Iran the age for the death penalty is 16 for boys and 9 for girls. The girls will generally be raped before the execution so that they will not be virgins and will not go to paradise.
I'm going to have to see some sort of proof for this.
Pantygraigwen
24-02-2006, 00:41
...to be eligible for the death penalty? In those countries that still do it, China, Saudi-Arabia, etc.

edit: Should there be a minimum age? After all, a criminal is just that, right?

We are all the minimum age for the death penalty the moment we leave the womb.

And, basically, we all have the sentence carried out on us, sooner or later. No last minute respite from the Governor.
Genaia3
24-02-2006, 00:41
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4295111.stm

http://www.geocities.com/richard.clark32@btinternet.com/iranfem.html
Quaon
24-02-2006, 00:46
In Iran the age for the death penalty is 16 for boys and 9 for girls. Females in Iran will generally be raped before the execution so that they will not be virgins and will not go to paradise.
Wow...Iran is full of sick SOBS, huh?
Free Farmers
24-02-2006, 00:46
Why don't you like to execute rich, christian, white children?

*trys to resist urge to quote Kanye West* *fails* George Bush doesn't like black people. ;) Ok, I'm done.

Anyways, it is just a joke, poking fun at conservatives (which are the people who support the death penalty)

I see someone watches the Colbert Report.

Yeah, that was a particularly funny line
Carisbrooke
24-02-2006, 10:26
The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003). This is a documented fact, and I find it shocking in the extreme.

*In Iran the age for the death penalty is 16 for boys and 9 for girls. Females in Iran will generally be raped before the execution so that they will not be virgins and will not go to paradise.*
This doesn't seem to be a documented fact, and sounds more like propaganda to me, but show me a REPUTABLE site with proof and I will reconsider my doubts.
Jacques Derrida
24-02-2006, 10:51
The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003). This is a documented fact, and I find it shocking in the extreme.

*In Iran the age for the death penalty is 16 for boys and 9 for girls. Females in Iran will generally be raped before the execution so that they will not be virgins and will not go to paradise.*
This doesn't seem to be a documented fact, and sounds more like propaganda to me, but show me a REPUTABLE site with proof and I will reconsider my doubts.

I don't know about the rape before the execution part - though nothing would surprise me with that country - but the ages are correct.

Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4118727.stm)

I assume you consider the BBC reliable.

Bear in mind that this is the country that put a multi-million dollar bounty on someone's head for writing a book. (And had the japanese translator stabbed to death).
Carisbrooke
24-02-2006, 10:59
They said Iran was breaking its commitments as a party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights - which include a promise not execute anyone under the age of 18. But this poor woman is OVER 18 I think?

*Under Iranian law, girls over the age of nine and boys over 16 face the death penalty for crimes such as rape and murder.* I DO consider the BBC reliable, thank you :D

I do however reiterate the fact that even though it is law in Iran, they have made an argrement NOT to execute under 18's and the US STILL has executed MORE child offenders than ANY other country.
Rhoderick
24-02-2006, 14:35
Zimbabwe 18, though i don't think it has ever been carried out on anyone under the age 25. To my knowledge, on 3 women have been executed in the country's history, two at the end of the 19th Cent for treason and one in the late eighties for killing and eating her children. Executions tend only to be for multiple homocides. Then again, the AIDS infection rates in Zim prisons and prison conditions mean any sentance might as well be a death penalty.
Genaia3
24-02-2006, 15:05
The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003). This is a documented fact, and I find it shocking in the extreme.

*In Iran the age for the death penalty is 16 for boys and 9 for girls. Females in Iran will generally be raped before the execution so that they will not be virgins and will not go to paradise.*
This doesn't seem to be a documented fact, and sounds more like propaganda to me, but show me a REPUTABLE site with proof and I will reconsider my doubts.

I sourced both the claims on the previous page.
Ratod
24-02-2006, 15:23
I sourced both the claims on the previous page.
I really wish I hadn't read that article or opened those pics.I don't really care if the US want's Irans oil, can they please just invade or whatever thay have to do to end that shit.Even the 'evil' US government is a million times more humane that Irans.
Genaia3
24-02-2006, 15:27
I find it hard to believe that Amnesty International can claim to know exactly how many children have been executed worldwide in any given period, especially given the corrupt opaqueness of many of the regimes that are the worst culprits.

According to a report published by the Organisation of Women Against Execution in Iran, at least two thousand women were executed between June 1981 and 1990. They have been able to prepare a list containing 1428 names. 187 of these women were under the age of 18, with 9 girls under the age of 13. The youngest girl executed was just 10 years old.

http://www.geocities.com/richard.clark32@btinternet.com/iranfem.html

Whilst I condemn the execution of any minor and am opposed to then death penalty generally I think it's worth pointing out that Amnesty's figures on the USA show that of the nine executions, seven of them were 17 and one of them was 16 and that they had committed real crimes. In Iran you can be executed for "acts incompatible with chastity" and "moral crimes" and people between the ages of 12-14 are known to have been executed.

I'm not sure what argument I'm making here really, maybe just that I find Iranian law utterly repulsive.
Palaios
24-02-2006, 15:38
Knowing Saudi Arabia (lived there), there probably isn't a minimum age, but if you're a foreigner there's a big chance that you'll just be sent out of the country instead (depending on what you did of course)