In the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, ''community sentiment" plays a central if not dispositive role in determining if a punishment is disproportionate. T o gauge sentiment on the death penalty for juveniles, two experiments with death-qualified subjects were run, where age (a 15-25 age range) and cuse (heinousness) were varied in the first, and type of defendant (principal, accessory, or felony-murder accessory) and an extended age range (13-25) varied in the second. Significant uge 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 killing kid was judged less blameworthy and death-worthy. Although politicians have called for "a mansized punishment for a man-sized crime," this community does not see that "man-sized" punishment fitting the kid.
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