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Ronald Chris Foster - Juvenile Death Penalty

Ronald Chris Foster

Chris's Case | The Trial | Chris's Background | The Case Against JDP | Available Action | Clemency Letters | Media Attention

On June 19, 2003, the Mississippi Supreme Court granted Chris Foster an evidentiary hearing on the issue of whether he is mentally retarded and, thus, ineligible for the death penalty. Governor Ronnie Musgrove has stated that the reprieve he granted to Chris prior to his execution date of January 8, 2003 will remain in place until the "judicial process is done." Read the Juvenile Death Penalty Initiative's Press Release on Governor Musgrove's January 6, 2003 stay of execution.

Chris's Case

Ronald Chris Foster, an African American, was 17 years of age at the time of his arrest for the June 10, 1989 murder of George Shelton in Lowndes County, Mississippi. After a legally problematic trial, Chris was found guilty and sentenced to death by a Lauderdale County jury. On December 2, 2002, the United States Supreme Court released its decision refusing to hear Chris Foster's case. Shortly thereafter, the Mississippi Attorney General requested an execution date for Chris of January 8, 2003. Under Mississippi law, Governor Musgrove has the power to grant clemency.

There is no excuse for this crime, and the perpetrator must be punished. However, given Chris's youth, malleability, and resulting diminished culpability, his execution would be contrary to American standards of justice, fairness, and decency, as well as international law.

For additional information on this case, please visit the International Justice Project's Chris Foster page.

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The Trial

In the early morning of June 10, 1989, an attempted robbery took place at the Hankins Superette convenience store in Lowndes County, Mississippi. George Shelton, the store's cashier, refused to open the cash register and a struggle ensued with the robber. During the robbery, the robber gained control over a pistol that Shelton kept behind the counter for protection. Shelton was shot and killed. After investigating the crime, officers arrested 17-year-old Ronald Chris Foster for the murder of Shelton. Chris was ultimately indicted, tried, and convicted of this offense. A Lauderdale County jury imposed the death penalty, and Chris was sentenced to die by lethal injection.

Chris's trial was plagued by a variety of problems. Because Chris was seventeen years old on June 10, 1989, when the crime occurred, he was entitled under Mississippi law to request the circuit court to conduct a special hearing to consider his age, lack of prior offenses, likelihood of successful rehabilitation and other factors which would favor sending the case to youth court instead of continuing in circuit court. Chris's counsel, unaware of the law, failed to make a request to the circuit judge to transfer the case to youth court and, thus, Chris was denied this individualized consideration by the circuit court.

Chris's trial attorney had requested a psychological examination of him. The motion for a psychiatric examination included a request for an examination to evaluate whether Chris met M'Naghten sanity standards, which excuse the defendant if he did "not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did not know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong." The motion also requested an evaluation of whether Chris exhibited any characteristics of a possible brain disorder that could be presented as a mitigating factor in the sentencing phase. In support of this motion, the attorney presented the affidavit of Chris's father, which stated that Chris, throughout his life, had exhibited strange and bizarre behavior leading the family to question his sanity and emotional health and well-being.

The Circuit Court Judge granted the motion for the purpose of determining whether Foster was competent to stand trial under M'Naghten, but delayed ruling on whether he should have a psychiatric examination for mitigation purposes until the results of the initial M'Naghten sanity examination could be obtained. During a motion for continuance, the attorney stated that he planned to call expert witnesses during the mitigation portion of the trial. However, the case proceeded to trial with no ruling on the motion for the appointment of a mental health expert for purposes of mitigation during the sentencing phase. Consequently, the only mitigating evidence introduced by counsel at the sentencing phase of the trial was the testimony of Chris's parents.

In fact, there was an extensive amount of mitigating evidence that could and should have been raised by counsel in the sentencing phase of the trial. Chris's age and the resulting lack of mental and emotional development should have been a focus of the mitigation phase. Unfortunately for Chris's case, scientific evidence on the slower development of the brain has only recently been discovered. This research suggests that the brain continues developing until the early twenties with the sections controlling impulses, goal oriented behaviour, among others, being the last to mature. Further, international law prohibits the execution of offenders who committed their crimes under the age of 18. While the jury was made aware that the "defendant has no significant history of criminal activity," the attorney failed to clarify to the jury that Chris actually had no history of criminal activity.

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Chris's Background
Foster Suffered Several Head Injuries as a Child and Was Raised in a Destructive Home Environment

Chris suffered two traumatic head injuries as a child, having been hit in the head with a baseball bat and having fallen off a motorcycle. Researchers have found that these types of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) can affect a person's judgment, concentration and planning. Furthermore, victims of TBI have difficulty with impulse control, monitoring social cues and have a problem with anger control and sudden agitation. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA call TBI the "silent epidemic" because survivors of TBI walk, talk, and look "normal," yet they suffer from serious consequences of brain injury. Not only did Chris suffer from various accidents, but home life was one of chaos. His father, an active alcoholic, would often hide bottles of whiskey under the house for the children to find. When Chris was twelve, his older brothers taught him how to drink alcohol. According to records, Chris's IQ tests revealed a low score of 80. He also dropped out of school after the eighth grade.

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The Case Against the Juvenile Death Penalty

Executing Juvenile Offenders Runs Counter to Basic Standards of American Justice and Fairness

The execution of a juvenile offender is contrary to fundamental principles of American justice which punishes according to the degree of intent and culpability and reserves the death penalty for only the "worst of the worst" offenders. By their very nature, teenagers are less mature and, therefore, less culpable than adults who commit similar acts but have no such explanation for their conduct. Adolescence is a transitional period of life when cognitive abilities, emotions, judgment, impulse control, and identity are still developing. In fact, recent discoveries in neuro-science reveal that the brain continues to develop into the early twenties, with the executive functions, such as impulse control, identity, decision making, and morality, developing last. As a result, late adolescence is a time when youth are refining moral values and when they are most susceptible to adult moral instruction. Indeed, immaturity is the reason we do not allow those under eighteen to assume the major responsibilities of adulthood, such as military combat service, voting, entering into contracts, drinking alcohol or making medical decisions.

Immaturity, compounded by additional extenuating circumstances, may demonstrate why the death penalty is not an appropriate form of punishment. A high percentage of juveniles on death row have suffered from all, or a combination of, the following mitigating factors; mental abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, drug addiction, abandonment and severe poverty. These factors may cause serious distress for the children involved. Trauma ordinarily arrests development in children and can frustrate all aspects of the child's functioning, including brain development. Children who are physically or sexually abused may be functioning at an emotional level close to the age when the trauma occurred. Furthermore, trauma may affect the development of the brain, with an involuntary fear response remaining the child's coping mechanism for most if not all degrees of stress. The experience of an abused and traumatized child is one of fear and frustration. Further, adolescents reason differently from adults, their processes are immature, including non-anticipation of an out come, underestimation of danger, and notably, the presumption that only one choice is available for them.

This is not to say that juvenile offenders do not know right from wrong and should not be punished, but that we as a society and a legal system have deemed that juveniles are different from adults and should not be subject to the ultimate adult punishment.

A number of organizations, such as the American Bar Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Child Welfare League of America, the Children's Defense Fund, the Youth Law Center, The Juvenile Law Center, the National Mental Health Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, the National Education Association, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, the Constitution Project, Physicians for Human Rights, the International Human Rights Law Group, World Organization Against Torture, the Reformed Church of America, the Episcopal Church, the Apostolic Nunciature, and the Unitarian Universalist Association, oppose executions for crimes committed by offenders under the age of 18. Similarly, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Vatican and Nobel Peace Prize recipients, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have expressed their strong opposition to the execution of juvenile offenders. Their message is the same; they urge that the execution for a crime committed while a juvenile is simply unacceptable in a civilized society.

A Majority of States and the Federal Government Have Recognized that Subjecting Adolescents to the Death Penalty is Contrary to Basic and Evolving Standards of Decency

Of the 38 states that permit the death penalty, only 22 permit the execution of persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes. Among these 22 states, only 14 have juvenile offenders on their death rows, while only 7 have carried out actual executions of juveniles since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In October, 2002, the United States Supreme Court was one vote shy of reconsidering whether the execution of 16 and 17 year olds has become cruel and unusual punishment and, thus, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. Four Justices publicly dissented, writing that the Court should address this issue now. In June, 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court found that executing those with mental retardation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The Court found that those with mental retardation "by definition…have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others." Scientists have found that adolescents and those with mental retardation share many of the same diminished capacities.

In 2002, Indiana abolished the juvenile death penalty, while Florida came extremely close (a bill passed the Senate unanimously, but died in the House; a similar bill had passed the House the previous year). In 1999, the State of Montana abolished the juvenile death penalty, and the Florida Supreme Court raised the age of eligibility from 16 to 17. Further, the Washington State Supreme Court eliminated the juvenile death penalty under state constitutional law in 1993, and Kansas and New York excluded juveniles for eligibility when they reinstated the death penalty in 1994 and 1995, respectively. In the midst of the current national re-examination of capital punishment, many states are reviewing their current death penalty practices and have either introduced legislation to abolish the juvenile death penalty or are considering such legislation. Finally, when the federal death penalty was reinstated, Congress specifically excluded offenders under the age of 18 from eligibility.

Executing Juvenile Offenders is Contrary to International Law

The execution of child offenders is not only contrary to principles of American justice, but is also in contravention of international law and fundamental standards of human rights. The ultimate goal of the international community is to abolish the death penalty under all circumstances, however, until that time there are restrictions on the categories of persons who can be executed, juveniles being one of the restricted categories. The prohibition of the execution of juveniles is referenced in a number of international treaties, declarations, and statements by international bodies, in addition to the laws of the majority of nations. The execution of juveniles is expressly forbidden in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6(5), the American Convention on Human Rights, Chapter 2, Article 4, Section 5, the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Article 68 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Article 37.

Since 1990, only seven countries have reportedly executed juveniles: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yemen, Pakistan and the United States. In the last three years this small number of nations known to have executed child offenders has further declined to only four: the DRC, Iran, Pakistan, and the US. In 1994, Yemen changed its law to prohibit the execution of juveniles. The Nigerian government has asserted to the UN Sub-Commission that an execution, which took place in 1997, was not of a juvenile, and Saudi Arabia emphatically denies the 1992 execution of a juvenile. In July 2000, Pakistan moved to outlaw such executions under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance signed on 1 July 2000. However, it has been reported that Pakistan executed Ali Sher on 3 November 2001 for a crime he committed at the age of 13. Since that time, President Musharrah of Pakistan has commuted the death sentences of approximately 100 young offenders to imprisonment. In December 1999, the DRC called for a moratorium on all executions. However, in January 2000, a 14 year-old child soldier was executed in the DRC. Since that time, according to OMCT-World Organization Against Torture, four juvenile offenders sentenced to death in the DRC in a military court were granted stays, and the sentences were commuted following an appeal from the international community.

In October, 2002 in Domingues v. Nevada, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held that the prohibition of the execution of juvenile offenders is a jus cogens norm of international law. The Commission explains that jus cogens norms "derive their status from fundamental values held by the international community" and "violations of such preemptory norms are considered to shock the conscience of humankind and therefore bind the international community as a whole, irrespective of protest, recognition, or acquiescence." It also cites other examples of such norms, including "genocide, slavery, forced disappearances and torture." The Commission held that the United States "acted contrary to a international norm of jus cogens as reflected in Article I of the American Declaration by sentencing Michael Domingues to the death penalty for crimes that he committed when he was 16 years of age." It is unmistakable that beyond the borders of the United States, the application of the death penalty for child offenders is rapidly advancing towards total abolition. Of the six countries, other than the US, that have reportedly executed juvenile offenders, all have either changed their laws or the governments have denied that the executions took place.

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Available Action

Under Mississippi law, the Governor has the power to grant clemency.

Please write to:

The Honorable Ronnie Musgrove
Governor, State of Mississippi
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 139
Jackson, MS 39205-0139
Phone: 601.359.3150
Fax: 601.359.3741

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Clemency letters
The following organizations and individuals wrote letters on Chris's behalf before his scheduled execution date in January 2003. Please click on a name to read that entity's letter requesting that the Mississippi Governor grant him repreive from his death sentence.

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Media Attention

Return to the Juvenile Death Penalty Home Page

ABA Juvenile Justice Center
740 15th Street, NW, 7th Floor • Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202.662.1506 • Fax: 202.662.1507 • Email: juvjus@abanet.org