(The state has a capital punishment statute but has not executed anyone in decades.)

In fact, the apparent hesitance on the part of the court to enforce the death penalty has prompted legislators to propose the constitutional amendment to strengthen the capital punishment statute.

Four years ago the judge sentenced Lemuel W. Smith to death under the only portion of the state's capital punishment statute that had not yet been declared void.

But some advocates of capital punishment statutes for younger offenders argue that the Court did not expressly preclude states from setting a younger age.

New York is one of 14 states with no capital punishment statute.

Massachusetts does not have a capital punishment statute.

The review by The Times confirms that those patterns appear to continue under the new era of capital punishment statutes.

In the aftermath of independence most states amended their criminal punishment statutes.

But she held that that states may not execute persons for crimes committed at age 15 or younger "under the authority of a capital punishment statute that specifies no minimum age."

Although Mississippi has the death penalty, prosecutors could not seek it because the capital punishment statute in effect at the time of Mr. Evers's murder was later ruled unconstitutional.