High court strikes down death penalty for juveniles

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara Then you haven't been paying attention to American juries.

I think you misread my statement. IMO, Minors can reasonably have a culpable mental state to support a capital conviction.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Commiting certain crimes does not require the same level of supposed sophistication as does, say, entering a commercial contract. An average 15 year old knows that its wrong to kill someone. Its a social norm that everyone is expected to follow. Not being able to vote on that issue is a moot point, as we cannot vote to legalize first degree murder. Therefore, if you can prove the elements of first degree murder for a 15 year old, then he should be punished accordingly.

What about a 9 year old? They know it is wrong to kill. Put them in the chair? How low do you go and why? Like Oerdin has said, if we consider children (or teens if you prefer) to be so much less capable than adults, then we should follow those ideas to their ends. Why do we stop short of where logic leads us?

When children steal, we put them in juvinile prison, not regular prison. Theft does not require sophistication, yet we treat children seperately on that account. Why must we treat them exactly the same as adults for murder? We recognize that children that engage in theft should not be treated like adults.

Furthermore, a 15 year old cannot decide to leave compulsory education, he cannot vote, he cannot contract, in most states he cannot drive. His rights are limited meaning he really does not have full citizenship rights. Why are these rights denied? Because 15 year olds are not seen as being as capable as adults. We decide they cannot have adult rights, so why give them adult responsibilities? We are left in the precarious situation where we impose adult responsibility on those who cannot exercise the rights which those responsibilities are tied to.

[Whaleboy]

Wycoff, I concur but it's useless if you want to draw a line between juveniles and adults... if you feel that distinction is necessary* then you have to draw a line. Between 15 and 16? Well what of the 15 year olds that are of a culpable mental state and the 16 year olds that aren't? 15 and 14? 14 and 13? Same problem... you're going to have this problem unless you cut back to some absurd age when you can be sure that no-one younger will be of a culpable age, but conversely many over won't.

With an issue as terminal as the death penalty, it's no place to so arbitrarily take the piss like this.

*This is precisely why the drawing of such lines should be made only when really necessary and even then with due care and consideration. I recognise that a legal system is a system and has to operates on guides and assumptions but then that's always going to be under attack, like the legal age of being an adult, or criminal responsibility. That's why, as I am anti-dp, I welcome this high court judgement, but say that more is required... I wouldn't advocate this judgement. Hope that makes some sense .

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Wycoff
I think you misread my statement. IMO, Minors can reasonably have a culpable mental state to support a capital conviction.

How did I misread your words? It's right there in what I quoted from you. Let me quote your words again so you can read what you wrote.

You're assuming that a jury would be unable to determine that any juvenile could have a mental state that would make him culpable for a capital crime. I think that that's ridiculous.

Unless you meant something entirely different, I have to go by the words you put on the screen.

I also argue with your revision, as science has shown that minors lack a fully developed frontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that deals with impulse control and understanding the consequences of actions. Teens do not physically have the same mental and emotional capacities as adults. We cannot expect them to act as adults nor treat them as such.

[OzzyKP]

Ack! What a great discussion, totally up my alley, but I'm too busy to partake in it. Sorry folks. I did write a blog entry about it, so I'll just let that do the talking for me. Since it seems folks are too lazy to click the link I posted, I'll submit the text here:

Instead of making everyone guess, I will just come out and say I am disappointed that the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for youth. I must also state that I oppose the death penalty on principle for all people. How can I reconcile these two? On youth rights grounds, purely. Not that I believe youth have a right to be executed, but this decision provides more precedent in the argument against the capacity and intelligence of young people. Basing the court's opinion in large part on this assumption. As a practical consideration too, this case hurts. It is good that the court recognized the hypocrisy of sentencing youth to death when they cannot vote, get married, or enjoy other adult rights, however they resolved that hypocrisy in the wrong direction. This results in making 18 a more monolithic age barrier, and takes out of our tool chest the glaring injustice of executing minors who can't vote. That all being said, I am glad that youth will no longer be executed. It is clearly unjust due to impose such a severe adult responsibility on individuals without the adult rights that should accompany it. If only this case didn't make attaining those adult rights more difficult, I would be more chipper about it all.

I just read through the majority opinion in Roper v. Simmons, and I'll give you a play by play of my responses to Justice Kennedy's arguments.

The first point made in the opinion is that popular opinion is moving toward opposition to the juvenile death penalty, and that is grounds to strike it down. In my opinion, popular opinion finds outlet in the legislative branch; the judicial branch should be dealing with absolutes of justice and the Constitution. Popular opinion shouldn't weigh upon court decisions.

Furthermore, in the decision, Justice Kennedy notes they are borrowing the same standard of looking to action by the states to determine public opinion that they used in the mentally ill death penalty case 3 years ago. He then goes on to concede that the changes in public opinion in both cases were very different. In the last 15 years, 16 states choose to abandon capitol punishment for the mentally retarded, but only 5 choose to abandon it for juveniles. Despite only being a change of 5 states, the court argues that as no state has chosen to reinstate the death penalty for minors, that the switch of these 5 states constitutes a "consistency of direction" in national attitudes toward the juvenile death penalty. Kennedy also sites the decreased utilization of the juvenile death penalty in states that allow it, and ending the use of the juvenile death penalty in the federal system in 1994.

Kennedy is right of course on the "consistency of direction" regarding minor death penalty attitudes, however I don't think it is a particularly strong case or especially relevant to deciding issues at the US Supreme Court. However it does set a promising precedent for abolishing the death penalty altogether, as many states have chosen to place moritoriums on the death penalty, and one could say that there is a "consistency of direction" away from the death penalty for adults as well.

Of course none of this is really the meat of my objection. To tell the truth I am glad that youth aren't being executed. I'd be quite happy if no one was executed. However the negative consequences of this case involve the argument that youth are mentally deficient and cannot be compared to adults.

"First, as any parent knows and as the scientific and sociological studies respondent and his amici cite tend to confirm, '[a] lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.'"

Just the kind of language I am afraid of. This argument enshrined in a SCOTUS decision is a dangerous foe of any possible judicial progress for youth rights. I dispute the validity of the scientific evidence cited, and am bothered by the casual "as any parent knows" language. No doubt Justice Kennedy draws upon the long standing precidents of "as every husband knows" and "as every white person knows" to build this particular case against youth.

His second point is that "juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure." This is a disagreeable assertion, but there is a spark of hope when Kennedy mentions this is explained in part "by the prevailing circumstance that juveniles have less control, or less experience with control, over their own environment." Perhaps leaving open the argument that giving youth more control would eliminate this second point from any bearing on the capabilities of youth.

Thirdly he states the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as an adult, their personality traits are more transitory. This point I can't really argue with. So generally it is the first point I have the biggest issue with. The second can be addressed and the third is mostly a given.

With the diminished culpability established by the court, Kennedy then questions whether the death penalty has much of a deterrent effect on young offenders. He finds no evidence that it does. I wonder of course whether there is much evidence the death penalty is a deterrent for adult offenders. To make his case, Kennedy quotes the decision in Thompson, "[t]he likelihood that the teenage offender has made the kind of cost-benefit analysis that attaches any weight to the possibility of execution is so remote as to be virtually nonexistent." This is so blatantly false and exaggerated a statement, I am amazed it was quoted. Ffurthermore it is amazing it was quoted in light of the details of this case in particular, in which the defendant, 17 year old Christopher Simmons, discussed the crime with his friends before it was committed and assured his friends they could "get away with it" because they were minors. Not only does this show a very clear cost-benefit analysis, but it shows that his callous plans were vindicated by the Court.

The Opinion had an interesting, and perhaps overlooked point about the death penalty in general next. Writing that Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) (the last time the Court looked at the juvenile death penalty) is no longer a relevant case, Kennedy notes that in looking for "objective indicia of consensus" regarding the use of the juvenile death penalty, the court should have considered the 12 states that reject the death penalty altogether. Last time, those states weren't considered as a factor, and this time they are apparently. It is possible this provides a precedent for considering laws against executing juveniles and the mentally retarded in challenges to the death penalty altogether.

Finally, Kennedy discusses international opinion of the juvenile death penalty. He notes that international laws are not a controlling factor in American cases, yet spends three pages discussing them. I agree they should have little bearing on the American judicial system, but this line of reasoning does pose interesting possibilities for the youth rights movement. Considering only 3 nations in the world have a drinking age of 21, the United States stands against a more unanimous world opinion with the drinking age than it does with a juvenile death penalty. Were someone to bring a case against the drinking age, I think we could use this line of reasoning to our advantage.

Despite being overall bad for future work advocating for youth rights, this case wasn't as bad as I expected. The decision was short, only 25 pages, and didn't go into much detail about how incompetent and brainless teens were. Though that was an underlying assumption of the opinion. I'll be interested in reading the dissent. While I'm not holding my breath, there is always the possibility a O'Connor or Scalia will dispute the claim about the capacities of youth.

If I feel up to it, and if people wish me to, I'll go through Justice O'Connor's 20 page dissent, and Justice Scalia's additional 20 page dissent and post again in response to them.

Originally posted at: http://www.oneandfour.org

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

http://www.parent-teen.com/collegeprep/teenagebrain.html

[Pyrodrew]

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/teenbrain.cfm

As expected, areas of the frontal lobe showed the largest differences between young adults and teens. This increased myelination in the adult frontal cortex likely relates to the maturation of cognitive processing and other "executive" functions. Parietal and temporal areas mediating spatial, sensory, auditory and language functions appeared largely mature in the teen brain. The observed late maturation of the frontal lobe conspicuously coincides with the typical age-of-onset of schizophrenia—late teens, early twenties—which, as noted earlier, is characterized by impaired "executive" functioning.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Health/story?id=462287

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1, 2005— Teen drivers often take chances behind the wheel. Those pushing for tougher teen licensing laws now say the latest science may help explain why.

Researchers studying the brain say the last section to develop — the frontal lobes — may not mature until a person is age 25 or beyond.

"The frontal lobes are sort of the executive center of the brain — the part of the brain that's responsible for planning, organizing, anticipating the consequences of one's actions," said Elizabeth Sowell, a UCLA neurophysiologist.

The research was cited by Virginia lawmakers who are pushing a bill to ban cell phone use by young teen drivers. A similar bill is up for debate in Maryland, along with a proposed measure to limit the number of passengers who can ride with a teen driver.

"The studies point to the fact that teens are taking the highest risk because in some respects the brains don't know any better," said William Bronrott, a Democratic legislator representing Montgomery County in Maryland's House of Delegates.

Researchers are quick to point out more study is needed to prove that what's happening in the teen brain directly impacts behavior.

But at Philadelphia's Temple University, researchers found young drivers were more likely to make risky decisions if their friends were present. For teen drivers, the risk of a crash doubles with just one extra passenger, the study found.

Tips for Safer Teen Driving

To lessen the chance of an accident, experts say parents should communicate with their teen while traveling together, invest in extra behind-the-wheel driver education, meet the teen driver's traveling companions, choose a safe car and ride periodically with the teen driver.

"Interestingly, the teenagers didn't take more risks when they were by themselves," said Lawrence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University. "It was only when they were in the presence of other kids."

It's another reason why lawmakers in 13 states are now trying to limit the distractions that lead to unsafe teen driving.

[OzzyKP]

http://www.youthrights.org/media/03-05-03AgeDiffStudy.pdf

This study finds 2/3rds of 11 to 13-year-olds and 4/5ths of 14-15 year olds are competent to stand trial. Eighty percent of 11 to 13-year-olds , 87 percent of 14 and 15 year olds and 93 percent of 16 and 17 year olds, the same range as adults, demonstrated mature levels of understanding.

On reasoning, the study finds 14 - 17 year olds did not differ from adults. On appreciation of consequences, 16-17 year olds and young adults did not differ. In general, the magnitude of difference btween the scores for 11-to 13-year-olds compared to adults was moderate by conventional statistical standards, yet the difference between the scores of 14-to-17-year-olds and adults was very small or did not differ.

[OzzyKP]

And a response to those bogus teen brain studies:

http://www.oneandfour.org/archives/2005/02/teen_brain_scan.html

Matthew Yglesias brings up an article in the Washington Post yesterday that cites a new study that 'proves' the inferiority of teenage, and indeed early 20-year-old's brains. Apparently I am a danger to myself and others around me because of my propensity for reckless risk taking. While Yglesias shrugged it off, I think it deserves a far closer look.

A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws.

Largely this finding is reached through taking MRI scans of the brain, and relying on purely physical evidence to determine and predict behavior. I am entirely skeptical, and even the author of the study, Jay Giedd, said there is no proven correlation between brain imaging and behavior. This, it seems, is another junk science attempt to prove the inferiority of teenagers based on shaky scientific evidence and politically motivated hypothesis', not unlike the many scientific studies released a century ago that 'proved' the less developed and thus inferior brains of women and blacks.

Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist who was one of the most eminent scientists in the history of psychology studied the issue as well. Piaget is responsible for much of the understanding about young children that gets taken for granted. His research though didn't stop with toddlers, yet since his conclusions no longer match our norms and expectations for teenagers they don't come up as much as brain scans like above.

Piaget found in his research that young people develop adult levels of reason and judgment at around 14-15, and many get there at 11 or 12. Furthermore he found that if someone doesn't achieve "formal operational thinking" by age 15 or so, they probably never will. Many adults never do. In several experiments done in the 70's it was found that not only do many adults lack formal operational thinking, but this ability tends to decline over time with adults in their 50s and 60s scoring lower than those in their early 20s.

Another standard, moral reasoning, put forward by the American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, found that by age 11 or so, many people achieve "conventional" reasoning, i.e. a level of reasoning ability that is standard and normal for adults of all ages. Other studies by David Wechsler and later J.C. Raven, done in the 1940s, suggest intelligence peaks around 14-15.

All of these studies are done on direct, behavioral and cognitive tests. NOT simple brain scans, which have little, if any, relevance to actual behavior.

The reliance on physical evidence such as brain scans seems much like a more advanced form of phrenology and craniometry which were used a century ago to prove the superiority of the 'white race'. There have been a multitude of studies out recently claiming teens are more guided by their emotions, or lazier, or more risk-prone than adults. Often these studies are done poorly, or their results are wildly mischaracterized and misused in the pursuit of magazine sales, TV viewers, and accomplishing legislative goals. Instead of writing a book refuting these studies (its already been written, and will be coming out in the next few months by Dr. Robert Epstein, from which I'm getting much of my research) I will just make one basic point: Correlation does not imply causation.

In other words, Elliot Valenstein wrote that:

A person's mental state and experience can modify the brain just as surely as the other way around. When there is a correlation between two events, we should not assume that we always know which way causation flows.

Assuming we trust the results of Giedd's brain scans, we must question, as he does, the rush to assign causality. Does a malformed or immature teenage brain affect behavior? Or does one's experiences and environment affect their brain? While not wanting to rehash the old nature vs. nurture debate, as this post is entirely long enough already, I'd just like to briefly address the state of being a teenager in America.

Teens today are subjected to more restrictions, more disrespect, more penalties and frustrations than any other group in society. Simple liberties such as leaving the house at night, or choosing what food to eat and when, are regularly denied teens. Simple privacies like having a bedroom door and trusting the security and privacy of one's own person are often denied teens. In a multitude of ways teens live as an oppressed, second-class citizenry. Would it surprise anyone that this state of affairs would have an affect on teen behavior, or even their brains?

You cannot study black slaves and make pronouncements regarding an entire race of people. Likewise you cannot study oppressed teens and expect results that would remain accurate for empowered, free teens.

Considering the fever with which these studies get latched onto, and the connection between them and calls to raise age restrictions, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see proposals to raise the drinking age or driving age to 25. Unlike Yglesias, I think all of us should have a strong concern when some study makes the case for our inferiority. Especially when it resembles now discredited racial science of a century ago.

[Odin]

on this rulling.

I am not against the death penalty on constitutional grounds, since it is a society's responsibility to define "cruel and unusual" punishment to a reasonable degree. The reason I am against the DP is because we cannot bring a dead person back to life if he/she is found to be innocent.

[Pyrodrew]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-02-28-teen-drive-cover-usat_x.htm

Deadly teen auto crashes show a pattern
By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — It was a double date like countless others: Two teenage girls and their teenage boyfriends, with plans to see a movie on a summer night.

Ashley Thompson, 16, died in this accident involving a Jeep Cherokee in Fairfax County, Va., in 2003.

But this one ended in grief. Sixteen-year-old Gerald Miller swerved his sport-utility vehicle to miss a car stalled on Interstate 95. The SUV, traveling about 78 mph, rolled five times. The boys were injured. The girls — Casey Hersch, 16, and Lauren Gorham, 15 — were thrown from the SUV and died.

To many who knew the victims, the crash seemed like a cruel act of fate, a freak tragedy beyond anyone's control. But it fit a common formula for teen deaths on the USA's roadways: Put a 16-year-old boy at the wheel of an SUV. Add two or three teens, including at least one other boy. Send them out at night. Finally, let them travel fast — and unbelted.

Those common factors emerged when USA TODAY examined all the deadly crashes involving 16-to-19-year-old drivers in 2003. About 3,500 teenagers died in teen-driven vehicles in the USA that year — a death toll that tops that of any disease or injury for teens. The South proved to be the deadliest region.

More than two-thirds of fatal single-vehicle teen crashes involved nighttime driving or at least one passenger age 16 to 19. Nearly three-fourths of the drivers in those crashes were male. And 16-year-old drivers were the riskiest of all. Their rate of involvement in fatal crashes was nearly five times that of drivers ages 20 and older, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Teen brains not developed

New medical research helps explain why. The part of the brain that weighs risks and controls impulsive behavior isn't fully developed until about age 25, according to the National Institutes of Health. Some state legislators and safety activists question whether 16-year-olds should be licensed to drive.

Sixteen-year-olds are far worse drivers than 17-, 18- or 19-year-olds, statistics show. Tellingly, New Jersey, which has long barred 16-year-olds from having unrestricted driver's licenses, for years has had one of the lowest teen fatality rates in the USA.

Other jurisdictions, too, have found the only sure way to cut the teen death toll is to limit unsupervised driving by 16-year-olds. Seven states and the District of Columbia don't give unrestricted licenses to anyone under 18. In Britain and Germany, teens can't drive until ages 17 and 18, respectively.

Rules that restrict driving at 16 have clearly had a positive effect, the insurance institute says. As the proportion of 16-year-olds in the USA with driver's licenses has declined from a decade ago, so has the proportion of 16-year-olds involved in fatal crashes. But the rate among those who are licensed has shown no improvement.

On an average day in the USA, 10 teenagers are killed in teen-driven vehicles. Some days are far worse. Crashes that occurred on one of the deadliest days of 2003 — Nov. 1 — killed 26 teens.

The death toll could swell in coming years. A record 17.5 million teens will be eligible to drive once the peak of the "baby boomlet" hits driving age by the end of this decade — 1.3 million more than were eligible in 2000.

Horrific as teenage deaths are, the collective response from their families is often one of grim acceptance. Jeffrey Runge, a former emergency room doctor who's now head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, shudders to recall how some parents reacted to hearing their teens had just died in a crash.

"It was amazing how many people would say, 'I guess it was just his time,' " Runge says.

Runge acknowledges that safety advocates have failed to adequately publicize what's known about why teens die in crashes. State laws often don't restrict behavior that's linked to many teen fatalities.

Nearly all states have some form of "graduated licensing" programs that limit driving privileges for new teenage drivers. In some states, the rules restrict whom teens can transport and when they can drive. Teen fatalities have declined in states with the programs, according to a new report by the insurance institute.

But the institute and other safety experts note that despite those programs, thousands of teens are still being killed on the roads. The reason, they say: Graduated licensing rules are poorly enforced and often riddled with loopholes.

When risks rise

A review of crash statistics finds clear patterns. The risk to teen lives rises when:

•A 16-year-old is at the wheel. Along with their higher rate of involvement in fatal crashes, 16-year-olds make driving errors, exceed speed limits, run off roads and roll their vehicles over at higher rates than do older drivers involved in fatal crashes.

"They're the youngest, so they are all inexperienced at that age," says Allan Williams, the institute's former chief scientist. "They're pushing the limits, trying out new things ... and they don't really have the controls over risk-taking in terms of judgment and decision-making."

•They're riding with other teens. Forty percent of 16-year-old drivers involved in deadly single-vehicle crashes in 2003 had one or more teen passengers. Teens' risk of dying nearly doubles with the addition of one male passenger, the insurance institute says. It more than doubles with two or more young men in the car.

Jackie Swanson, 18, had two passengers — her 16-year-old cousin, Thomas, and a 17-year-old friend, James Newton — and was driving about 90 mph when she lost control of a Firebird convertible in a 2003 Louisiana crash. Swanson struck another car, scaled a guardrail and went airborne across several lanes of traffic. The three unbelted teens were ejected and killed.

Thomas Swanson, Thomas' father and Jackie's uncle, says the loss forced him to relapse temporarily into cocaine addiction. "I was trying to bury the deaths with the drugs," Swanson says.

•They're in teen-driven cars after dark. Teen drivers are three times as likely as drivers 20 and older to be involved in fatal crashes between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., the institute says, and 16-year-olds die at night at twice the rate as in the daytime. It's harder to see at night, so it's harder to react quickly to obstacles. Inexperienced drivers are more vulnerable to making errors after dark.

Jennifer McElmurray, of Evans, Ga., who turned 16 in February 2003, was driving that June when she lost control of her car and hit a stand of trees. Her car was engulfed in flames. McElmurray survived the crash, but her two male passengers, ages 16 and 17, died. The nighttime curfew for new drivers was midnight; the sheriff was called to the scene at 11:56 p.m.

•The young driver loses control. Driver error is involved in 77% of fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers but in less than 60% of crashes with drivers 20 and older.

About a third of all 16-year-old drivers and a quarter of 17-to-19-year-old drivers involved in fatal crashes rolled their vehicles. Rollovers often occur when a driver overcorrects and runs off the road. Inexperienced teens are most likely to do so.

On a July night in 2003, Jessie Bell, 16, was following a car driven by her boyfriend on a Missouri highway with a 65-mph speed limit when she lost control. The vehicle rolled into a ditch, and she died.

•They're in an unsuitable vehicle. Because they're in the age group most likely to be involved in a crash, teensshould occupy vehicles least likely to roll and most protective when they crash, highway safety experts say. Yet, teens often wind up in small cars, which are especially vulnerable when hit by larger vehicles, or in SUVs, which are more prone to roll over.

Two years ago, Runge caused a stir when he noted he would never let his inexperienced teens drive a vehicle with a two-star (out of five) rollover rating from the safety administration. Only SUVs and pickups score that low in the ratings.

Terry Khristian Rider, 16, died after he was partly ejected from the GMC SUV he was driving in a 2003 crash in Orangeburg, S.C. His uncle, John Rider, says Terry borrowed the vehicle to drive his girlfriend home before midnight. "Those things are kind of top-heavy, and it doesn't take a whole lot of correcting to roll them," Rider says. "I think it's wrong for people to let kids drive (SUVs)."

•They drive in more dangerous regions. Eight of the 10 states with the highest teen-driver fatal crash-involvement rates are in the South. Highway safety officials from Southern states, including Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, say lax enforcement of speeding or alcohol laws and many rural, tree-lined roads that provide little margin for error make their states deadlier for young drivers.

Kim Proctor, Mississippi's highway safety chief, blames weak seat-belt laws in her state, Florida and Kentucky and difficulty in getting many pickup drivers and minorities to buckle up.

Parents have no idea

Kathy Schaefer, the mother of Florida crash victim Casey Hersch, and Melissa Herberz, Lauren Gorham's mother, had no idea of the odds their daughters were facing the July night they were killed.

"I was a very controlling parent," Schaefer says. "But I never thought my child would be killed in a car."

To this day, Schaefer frequently stays in her bedroom all day, mourning the loss of her only child.

The mothers didn't know that the vehicle their daughters were in at the time — a Ford Explorer Sport Trac SUV with a pickup bed — had earned a low two-star government rollover rating. Nor did they recognize the risk the girls faced with a 16-year-old boy driving several passengers. Male teen drivers are about 75% more likely than female teen drivers to be involved in fatal crashes, the insurance institute says.

Florida had the fourth-worst teen fatal-crash rate in 2003. It isn't among the 28 states that restrict how many passengers 16-year-old-drivers can have, and it's one of 30 states that forbid police to stop drivers solely for not wearing safety belts; none of the teens was belted.

Florida does have an 11 p.m. driving curfew for 16- and 17-year-old drivers. The crash occurred just after 9 p.m.

Highway safety officials around the USA complain that many state legislators, pressured by parents, have refused to tighten laws to bar teens from driving at night or from having teen passengers, despite clear evidence those factors sharply raise the risk of teen deaths.

Safety officials note that of the 38 states with nighttime driving restrictions, more than half don't start those restrictions until at least midnight — when, they say, most younger teens are not out.

"There's so much research that has shown (graduated licensing) makes a huge difference that we have been trying almost desperately to get (our law) upgraded," says Alabama traffic safety chief Rhonda Pines. Alabama lets 16-year-olds drive after midnight if they're returning from a hunting or fishing trip and have their parents' consent. The state also lets 16-year-olds have up to three teen passengers, in addition to family members.

There are also regional disparities in how alcohol and speeding prohibitions are treated. In Mississippi, where fatalities often occur on tree-lined roads, only one county authorizes sheriffs to use radar guns. Speeding laws are seldom enforced on those roads, Proctor says.

Some states will license even teens who got speeding tickets while driving with a learner's permit.

James Champagne, chairman of the national Governors Highway Safety Association, laments what he calls a casual attitude toward alcohol abuse in his home state of Louisiana. Yet Champagne, a former state police lieutenant colonel, notes it isn't easy to enforce graduated licensing. "Police will look at it as a priority depending on what importance the public puts on it," says Champagne, the Louisiana governor's highway safety director.

Those who advocate graduated licensing say the laws assume parents will enforce them. But interviews with safety officials and crash reports suggest parents often let teens skirt the laws, don't know the rules or aren't aware their kids are driving. The parents of at least two teens killed in 2003 car crashes thought their kids were washing, not driving, the car.

"We don't have police officers on every corner," Champagne says. "Too many parents expect the police to be the parent."

Hard to move forward

Gayle Bell was doing everything that seemed appropriate for a parent when Jessie died in her crash. But she no longer thinks 16-year-olds are old enough to drive. Jessie was ejected from her Chevrolet Cavalier coupe in El Dorado Springs, Mo. Bell says the grieving "melts your body down."

Jessie got her license in March 2003 and her car three months later. She was driving the next month, at night, when she crashed.

"Really, the only way to get the experience is to go out and drive," Bell says. "If I had to swerve, I would know how to do it. Jessie really didn't."

Marvin Zuckerman, a psychologist and former professor at the University of Delaware, for years has studied another reason, beyond inexperience and immaturity, why teens tend to be risky drivers. He calls it "sensation seeking."

In driving terms, it's a desire to derive a thrill from the experience. Zuckerman doesn't think full licenses should be awarded until age 21. His research has found that the desire to take risks and act impulsively peaks around age 19 or 20. "It's no coincidence the peak accident rates are in those age ranges," Zuckerman says.

James Avello, 18, Hersch's former boyfriend, who recovered from injuries he suffered in the crash, says the loss of their friends has had little effect on the driving of his classmates at Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School. Avello sold his SUV in favor of a less rollover-prone Mazda Millenia sedan. But many teens, he says, drive their own, often-sporty, cars to school on major highways.

Gerald Miller, 18, the driver in the crash, transferred to another high school after enduring death threats from classmates who blamed him for the deaths, says his mother, Geralyn. She says her son needed intensive therapy.

On the 8th of every month, Schaefer visits the spot on I-95 where her daughter was killed on July 8, 2003. It's marked with an Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh's slow but lovable donkey sidekick. Her daughter's volleyball coach gave her that name during a lackluster performance, and it stuck.

After the crash, Casey Hersch's mother and stepfather moved out of the family home to try to escape their anguish. The family still owns the home, now unoccupied. Casey's bedroom, filled with Eeyores, remains untouched. Schaefer still runs the girl's volleyball team concession and goes to school soccer games. Those are about the only commitments in life that she keeps.

"A mother's life is all about being devoted to her child," says Schaefer, who chose laughter as her cell phone ring tone because she so seldom hears it anymore. "One crazy night took everything away."

[OzzyKP]

Response:

http://www.oneandfour.org/archives/2005/01/teen_witchhunt.html

The Virginia legislature is now looking at the issue of cell phone use by teen drivers. A bill was recently introduced, and apparently overwhelmingly passed through committee that would ban all cell phone use of drivers under 18. Including hands-free attachments. Before I get upset over the fact this is being discussed at all, a patient, discerning person must look at the issue impartially and ask a few key questions.

Have there been a rash of accidents by teens involving cell phones in Virginia? Hmm, not really.

Are teens more prone to get into accidents while talking on the cell phone? Hmm, not really.

So....why is this bill being introduced and overwhelming passed? Ah yes, its a teen witchhunt based on nothing but anti-teen fears, pandering, and the lack of teen political power. Yes, of course.

I was contacted by WAMU this afternoon because they wanted to do a piece on the subject. Wanting to be a good, informed guest I diligently went online to find statistics and such on either side of the issue. A cursory look found no mention whatsoever of a higher than average rate of teen accidents caused by cell phone use, yet I did turn up a recommendation by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration that states pass laws banning the use of cell phones by teen drivers. According to CBS News the recommendation was made after reviewing "a February 2002 accident in which a 20-year-old Maryland driver with little experience flipped over her SUV and landed on a minivan. The driver and four others were killed."

I'm still waiting to hear an explanation for why an accident caused by an adult would lead to the recommendation for further penalties on teenagers.

As for whether cell phones cause accidents or not, well I dunno, but this bit is interesting,

Drivers who are doing other tasks are more likely to have an accident. Inattentive drivers contribute to at least 25% of accidents, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This equates to 1.2 million accidents each year caused by distracted drivers. The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates that 1.5% of distracted driver accidents were attributable to cell phone use (compared to 10.8% caused by other occupants causing a distraction; 11.4% to adjusting the music). A driver who inserts a music CD increases the likelihood of an accident by six times as compared to glancing at the fuel gauge. So if cell phone use causes fewer accidents than fiddling with the radio, why are cell phones getting much of the blame? For one thing, it's a distraction that is easier for other drivers to spot. It's easy to blame another driver if he or she is on a cell phone. And cell phone use is becoming more and more common; it's a visible distraction.

So 25% of accidents are from distractions, and 1.5% of THOSE are from cell phones. That means just .375% of all accidents are related to cell phone use. That's less than half a percent! Switching the radio contributed to almost 8 times more accidents than using the cell phone. Of course there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics, so who knows if the above are true. A study by Harvard quoted by CBS News claims that cell phones caused a full 5% of accidents in the country. In any event, it doesn't appear to be a national epidemic.

Still however the question remains: why scapegoat teens?

In a moment of clarity by the Virginia committee chair I think we have found the answer. When asked why the committee unanimously supported a ban on all teenage cell phone use and then rejected a proposal to require adults to use hands-free cell phones, the committee chair had this to say,

“Things change when you’re not old enough to vote,” joked Sen. Marty E. Williams, R-Newport News. “We can be tough on them, can’t we?”

Yes you can.

For those who haven't gotten the message yet, this is exactly why teens need the right to vote. To protect themselves from hypocritical bureaucrats who fall over themselves to pass more restrictions on their lives no matter the cause.

[GePap]

I love Ozzy's position of wanting 16 years olds to be sentenced to die to show that they are adults, and thus try to get them right to vote and so forth...

Consistent. Wrong, but consistent at least.

[OzzyKP]

Do you truly believe 16 year olds like the one from this case are incapable of doing a cost-benefit analysis regarding the commission of their crime?

[Pyrodrew]

Response:

That article was not only about teen cell phones.