On Facebook and Twitter some of you asked whether the teens accused of killing Samuel Poss could face the death penalty.
Jacob Reynolds set out to Verify if convicted teen killers are eligible for the death penalty in the state of Georgia and across the United States.
Our sources are Bibb County District Attorney David Cooke, longtime defense attorney Frank Hogue and a 2005 United States Supreme Court decision.
On Wednesday, Dakota White was found guilty for the murder of Samuel Poss.
On social media, you asked us about the death penalty and if it could be used in this case.
It's a pretty simple answer, according to Cooke.
“18 and above, then the district attorney has the ability to seek the death penalty,” Cooke says in his downtown Macon office.
But White was 17-years-old when Poss was killed in October of 2016.
According to the United States Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons, decided in 2005, juveniles cannot be sentenced to death.
The decision was 5-4.
Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority opinion in that 2005 decision:
"The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed… It is so ordered.”
Kennedy’s opinion also highlights the fact that since 1990, only Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States had executed juveniles.
It also said:
“A majority of the States have rejected the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders under 18, and we now hold this is required by the Eighth Amendment.”
Cooke says that leaves a few options for juvenile murder convictions.
“Either the person can get life with the possibility of parole or life without the possibility of parole,” Cooke says.
The other teen accused, Brandon Warren, was 18-years-old at the time the crime was committed.
But, Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig said out of fairness, if they could not ask for the death penalty for White they weren't going to pursue it against Warren.
Hartwig says his office discussed the decision with the Poss family.
Frank Hogue has worked as a defense attorney for 27 years, has handled eight death penalty cases and is working on two more.
He says the age limit exists for a reason.
“Because they don't think like mature adults, generally, the Supreme Court had to draw a line somewhere and that's how the law works,” Hogue says after examining Justice Kennedy’s opinion.
Hogue says Kennedy argues that juveniles are less mature, more vulnerable to peer pressure and their character is not fully formed yet in the eyes of the court.
So we Verified that in the United States it is illegal to sentence someone to death if he or she was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.
Dakota White's sentencing hearing has not been set yet.
Brandon Warren's trial begins jury selection on Monday.
VERIFY SOURCES
Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig
Bibb County District Attorney David Cooke
Defense Attorney Frank Hogue
VERIFY RESOURCES
United States Supreme Court Roper v. Simmons (2005) Opinion by Justice Kennedy