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But in addition to the racial imbalance of the death-row population that Hawkins cites, experts say juvenile offenders on death row are often the victims of recent, horrible child abuse. The case of Robert Anthony Carter, a child of abuse who was put on death row in Texas 15 years ago for crimes he allegedly committed when he was 17 years old, is not atypical. Carter, who is black, grew up in a Houston housing project and was routinely taunted and beaten by other children because his clothes were ragged and dirty. His mother and stepfather would thrash Robert and his five siblings with wooden sticks and electric cords. At age five, he was hit in the head with a brick. At 10, one of his brothers hit him so hard on the head with a baseball bat that the bat broke. Another time, his mother smashed a dinner plate on his head. None of these injuries was ever treated. His IQ has been measured at 74, which is considered semiretarded. None of this information was presented at Carter's original trial for the robbery and murder of a gas-station clerk. The jury found him guilty in 10 minutes. His case is now before the Supreme Court.
A 1988 study by Georgetown University neurologist Dr. Jonathan Pincus and New York University psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis of 14 condemned juvenile offenders, one of whom was Carter, found that all 14 had suffered serious head injuries as children, all had serious psychiatric problems, all but two had been severely beaten or physically abused as children, and five had been sexually abused by relatives. Only two had IQ scores above 90.
Many adult offenders, of course, also had rough childhoods. But as Victor Streib, dean of Ohio Northern University's law school and an expert on condemned teens, points out, "The 30-year-old criminal has been out of the house for 10 years. He's had time to form a new life. Almost all teenage offenders are still living at home. The damage done to them emotionally and mentally is not so far removed. The abuse was last night." Counters VOCAL's Shehane: "We have to go beyond rationalizing violent, heinous crime by fluffing it off to 'Oh, he had a bad upbringing.'"
To be sure, almost every inmate, particularly the ones on death row, has a tall tale to tell, of being railroaded by overly aggressive prosecutors, of being set up by enemies or let down by friends, of crucial evidence that was supposedly lost or airtight alibis that supposedly went unheard. Cousin, for his part, has maintained his innocence since he was arrested and charged with murder more than two years ago. What makes his claim of innocence so compelling is that there is a good deal of evidence that suggests he may be telling the truth.
His case raises the question: Should teens, guilty or not, ever be put in a situation where they are forced to fight for their lives? "Knowing I'm on death row for something I didn't do is pretty hard," says Cousin. "You picture yourself being executed. You think about what your next life will be like. It's like a fantasy, something you never dreamed could happen. I feel like I'm in the middle of reality in a fantasy. What did I do to be treated like this?"
A FATAL DATE