As long as the death penalty has come up

New scientific research has strengthened the case against imposing capital punishment on minors.

Juveniles may find it harder than adults to foresee the consequences of their actions. The finding may explain why teenagers act compulsively and take more risks,

reports the December 4 issue of New Scientist magazine.

We know teenagers can be a bit gawky while they are still learning to coordinate their bodies, says Abigail Baird, a cognitive scientist from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, US. "We mustn't forget that cognition is doing the same." Teenagers take more risks, because they do not foresee the consequences as adults do, she says. ...

In Baird's experiment, carried out with colleague Jonathan Fugelsang, teenagers and adults were shown scenarios on a computer screen, such as eating a salad or swimming with sharks. The subjects had to judge whether each was safe or dangerous. Both groups took longer to decide a scenario was dangerous, but this difference was greater in teenagers. Adults took 1.6 seconds longer to reach a decision while teenagers took 1.75 seconds more.

Brain scans taken during the test show that the prefrontal cortex was more active in the teens, suggesting they were making a greater effort to judge the results of each situation. The adults had more basal ganglia activity, pointing to a more automatic response, Baird told a meeting on Law and the Brain at the Institute of Advanced Legal studies, part of University College London, UK, this week.

I recall coming to recognize something along those lines some years ago when I scolded some boys who were throwing rocks at a squirrel on a telephone wire. As they stated to walk away, one of them said "You didn't have to get mad."

"Well, wait a minute," I said to him. "What would have happened if you had hit it?"

He froze, his face went blank for a second, then it turned red. I realized at that instant that it had never occurred to him what would happen if he had succeeded: The squirrel would have dropped a good 20 feet to hard pavement, quite possibly being killed or at least sufficiently injured to become easy prey. He didn't want to hurt the squirrel, he just wanted to see if he would hit it with a stone. He never took the next step in thinking about it. Children are not just miniature adults and it makes no sense legally or ethically to treat them as if they are.

Footnote: The article notes that 19 states allow for the execution of juveniles, and 23 people under the age of 18 have been put to death - more than half of them in Texas.