KILLING KIDS - THE JUVENILE DEATH-PENALTY AND COMMUNITY SENTIMENT

in the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, ''community sen timent'' plays a central if not dispositive role in determining if a p unishment is disproportionate. To gauge sentiment on the death penalty for juveniles, two experiments with death-qualified subjects were run , where age (a 15-25 age range) and case (heinousness) were varied in the first, and type of defendant (principal, accessory, or felony-murd er accessory) and an extended age range (13-25) varied in the second. Significant age effects occur in both experiments, with approximately 75% and 65% refusing to give the death penalty for the youngest (13-15 ) and next youngest (16-18) groups, whereas 60% give the death penalty for the 25-year-old. In their reasons for their decisions, the killin g kid was judged less blameworthy and death-worthy. Although politicia ns have called for ''a mansized punishment for a man-sized crime,'' th is community does not see that ''man-sized'' punishment fitting the ki d.