THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE OSCE AREA INTERNATIONAL SAFEGUARDS Pregnant women and children Pregnant women cannot be executed under federal or state law. Women can be executed, and, according to unofficial statistics, there were 49 women on death row as of 30 June 2004. At the federal level, persons who were below the age of 18 at the time of the crime cannot be sentenced to death.121 At the state level, 19 states retain the death penalty for persons who were under 18 at the time of the crime. Napolean Beazley, T.J. Jones, and Toronto Patterson were executed in Texas in 2002, and Scott Allen Hain was executed in Oklahoma in 2003. All were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. The United States has entered a reservation to Article 6 of the ICCPR that provides that “the United States reserves the right, subject to its constitutional constraints, to impose capital punishment on any person (other than a pregnant woman) duly convicted under existing or future laws permitting the imposition of capital punishment, including such punishment for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.”122 The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed concern that this reservation may be incompatible with the object and purposes of the ICCPR, and the Inter-American Commission has found the United States to be violating a principle of jus cogens in its pursuit of the death penalty against persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.123 South Dakota and Wyoming passed legislation abolishing the death penalty for juveniles in March 2004.124 Furthermore, the US Supreme Court is due to consider the constitutionality of the death penalty for juveniles in the case of Roper v. Simmons in October 2004.125 In particular, the Court will consider whether the execution of juveniles violates the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. The Court last considered this issue 121 122 123 124 125 18 U.S.C. § 3591(a)(2)(D), 18 U.S.C. § 3591 (b)(2). See Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/79/Add.50, A/50/40, Paragraph 279, 3 October 1995. Inter-American Commission Report No. 101/03, Case 12.412, Napoleon Beazley United States, 29 December 2003, and Inter-American Commission Report No. 62/02, Case 12.285, Michael Domingues United States, 22 October 2002. However, on 10 May, Governor Craig Benson of New Hampshire vetoed a bill, passed by both houses of the New Hampshire legislature, to raise from 17 to 18 the minimum age at which a person can be eligible for the death penalty in the state. No. 03-0633. 40