Woman Set for Execution for Crime Committed as Teenager
September 30, 2026
Tennessee plans to execute a woman for her role in a murder when she was 18 years old, but a New York Times opinion essay argues that no one should face the death penalty for a crime committed at such a young age. This aligns with the observation in Issues by Laurence Steinberg, an early researcher in adolescent brain development, that teenagers are more likely than adults to engage in a variety of risky behaviors because their brains have not fully matured. Thus, teenagers “should be viewed as inherently less responsible than adults, and should be punished less harshly than adults, even when the crimes they are convicted of are identical.”