Panel approves ban on executing Nevada's minors

A Nevada Assembly panel voted Thursday to ban executions of anyone convicted of committing a capital crime when under age 18.

The Judiciary Committee sent AB118 to the Assembly floor after hearing David Fassler, a University of Vermont professor who specializes in child psychiatry, describe major changes that the human brain undergoes during adolescence.

Fassler said that because of those changes, youths 16 to 18 years old often rely on a part of their brain, the amygdala, that controls instinct rather than the frontal cortex, which controls reasoning, planning and judgment.

"As a result, they also think and reason in a different way, they are much more likely to act on impulse, without considering the consequences of their actions, and they are generally more receptive and responsive to intervention and rehabilitation," Fassler said.

Under AB118, a no-parole life prison term would be imposed instead of death by injection in capital cases involving juveniles.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, chief sponsor of the measure, said the committee vote reflects a national trend and shows the panel members tried to look at fact instead of emotion.

Giunchigliani credited Fassler with helping focus the committee's attention and said she'll consider bringing him back to Nevada for Senate hearings on the bill.

The committee also heard testimony that international opinion rejects executing minors, and only seven countries worldwide execute people under 18 years old. Only the United States has done so since 2000.

Richard Siegel, president of the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said public opinion in the United States is also against executing minors.

He said a Gallup poll from May 2002 indicated that 69 percent of people polled across the country said they were against executing minors.

There is now one man on Nevada's death row who was convicted as a juvenile. Michael Domingues was 16 in 1993 when he killed Arjin Pechpho, 24, and her 4-year-old son, Jonathan Smith, at their home in Las Vegas. Domingues lived next door.

Ben Graham, a lobbyist for the Nevada District Attorney's Association, voiced moderate opposition to the proposal, claiming that any of the issues raised by bill proponents could be raised as mitigating factors during the penalty phase of a capital murder trial.

AB118 now moves to the full Assembly for its consideration.