Kentucky Supreme Court declines to rule on death penalty for defendants under 21
The Kentucky Supreme Court is avoiding, for now, a decision on whether criminal defendants between the ages of 18 and 21 can face the death penalty, including a high-profile prosecution involving the 2015 murder of University of Kentucky student Jonathan Krueger.
The high court ruled Thursday that it’s too early for it to get involved in two Fayette Circuit Court cases in which young defendants could be sentenced to death. Trials have not yet been held, so the defendants lack standing to make an appeal, the court said.
“At this stage of the criminal proceedings, none of the appellees has been convicted, much less sentenced, and thus none has standing to raise an Eighth Amendment challenge to the death penalty,” Deputy Chief Justice Lisabeth Tabor Hughes of Louisville wrote for a unanimous court.
The cases will return to Fayette County for trial.
The appeals to the Supreme Court began with a 2017 decision by Fayette Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone, who ruled that it would be unconstitutional to impose a death sentence on someone younger than 21.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court barred the death penalty for crimes committed by those under the age of 18. In his ruling, Scorsone said research on brain development has established that 18- to 21-year-olds should be considered less culpable for crimes for the same reasons the U.S. Supreme Court gave for defendants under age 18.
People in the age group of 18 to 21 lack the maturity necessary to control their impulses and fully consider risks, making them unlikely to be deterred by the possible consequences of their actions, Scorsone wrote three years ago.
In addition, those younger defendants are susceptible to peer pressure and emotional influence, he wrote. And their character is not yet fully formed, so “they have a much better chance at rehabilitation than do adults,” he wrote.
The two cases at issue involve Efrain Diaz Jr. and Justin D. Smith, who are charged with Krueger’s murder, and Travis Bredhold, charged with the 2013 murder of Marathon gas station attendant Mukeshbhai Patel. The defendants were between the ages of 18 and 21 when the crimes were committed.
Krueger, 22, of Perrysburg, Ohio, died from a gunshot to the chest, fatally wounded during a robbery while walking with a friend on East Maxwell Street near the UK campus. Krueger was photo editor of the campus newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel.
Diaz was 20 at the time and Smith was 18 at the time of Krueger’s slaying.
Patel, 51, was an émigré from India shot to death in a robbery at the Alexandria Drive gas station where he had worked for two years. He left behind a close-knit family in Lexington including his wife, two sons, a sister and his elderly parents.
Bredhold was 18 at the time of Patel’s slaying.
There are two people on Kentucky’s Death Row for crimes they committed while over 18 but under 21.
They are Ronnie Lee Bowling, convicted of shooting and killing two service station attendants in Laurel County during robberies in 1989, and Karu Gene White, convicted of beating three elderly people to death in 1979 while robbing a store in Breathitt County.
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 10:48 AM.
