There are common sense reforms that can be done so that a delay of decades to execute someone can be mitigated, and at no loss to fairness or justice.
Probably the biggest problem is that federal judges who are personally opposed to any death penalty, try to force a “death by ducks” strategy, of nit-picking tiny details of the means of execution. For example, if three drugs are used, then the judge rejects it on the grounds that different drugs are “better”, even if unavailable, or that a different combination of drugs are “better”, or that only very perishable drugs can be used, so have to be procured, if available, just before the execution, etc., ad nauseum.
This could be alleviated by the US senate and house judiciary committees deciding that states are “competent authorities” to decide *how* to execute, so that the means they choose, of previously used legal means of execution, are not a federal issue.
Second, is that all death penalty appeals should automatically move to the head of the federal docket. Some federal judges purposefully accept such appeals, but put them at the end of the list, which means years of delay even before an appellate hearing. In addition, the committees could decide to limit the amount of time that can be used for delays during the appeal, say one month each for the defense, the prosecution, and one month at the judge’s discretion.
Third, the committees should agree that for the most part, federal judges cannot overturn death penalties, or return them to lower courts with instructions to overturn or not to allow a death sentence. Unless an appeal exonerates a conviction. This means if the judge throws out the death penalty, the convict goes free. No half measures. Few federal judges opposed to the death penalty would dare release a murderous criminal if that was the only option other than the death penalty.
In any event, while giving a death penalty to a savage juvenile should not be as easy as giving one to an adult, and certainly it should merit more scrutiny at the state and federal level, just refusing it entirely on the grounds of numerical age should not be done.
Right now, trying particularly heinous juveniles as adults is generally seen as reasonable, and prosecutorial discretion is generally good in deciding this, so the same consideration should be used in determining the death penalty.
As one example, here is the story of a vicious, Mexican cartel assassin, at the age of 11. Who is soon to be released in the United States, at the age of 17 or 18. Free to roam our streets, because he is a “juvenile”.
N.B.: The cartels are specially recruiting young juveniles to commit heinous acts, precisely because they will not risk the same punishment as adults.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/26/world/la-fg-mexico-killer-kid-20131127
I have no problem putting them in jail for life for a murder committed at that age. Just move them to big boy prison at age 18.