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On June 29, 1988, the United States Supreme Court vacated the death sentence of William Wayne Thompson, a fifteen year old Oklahoman found guilty of first degree murder.' The case was decided under the auspices of the eighth amendment's prohibition against the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishment."2 By examining the treatment of chronological age in state and federal capital punishment statutes, the behavior of juries, and the disproportionality between the death penalty and a juvenile's culpability, a plurality of the Court determined that the execution of a person less than sixteen years of age at the time of the commission of a capital offense3 is unconstitutional. Justice O'Connor, in a concurring opinion, rejected the plurality's bright line rule but nevertheless vacated Thompson's death penalty due to the Oklahoma legislature's apparent lack of careful deliberation in permitting a juvenile to be transferred from juvenile court to criminal court where he would thereby be subjected to the state's capital punishment statute. After challenging the import of the Court's survey of legislation and jury behavior, this Note proposes that the great strength of the Court's opinion lies in its affirmance of the fundamental precepts and objects of the juvenile justice system, a system that has until recently suffered the harsh criticism of a skeptical Court.

Eighth Amendment: The Death Penalty for Juveniles: A State's Right or a Child's Injustice?