Juvenile Faces Haunting The Nation's Death Rows

ATMORE, Ala. - His face has more pimples than whiskers, but there is nothing childlike about what Clayton Joel Flowers got caught up in two years ago or the dead end he has reached now at the age of 17.

Flowers is awaiting execution in Holman Prison, the youngest person in Alabama on death row and the second-youngest in the country.

He was sentenced to die in Alabama's electric chair earlier this year for sexually assaulting a college coed, beating her to death with a car jack and dumping her body in a creek when he was 15 years old.

``It's rough, all the tension, all the worry, knowing that I didn't do the crime. . . .'' Flowers said during an interview in prison. Flowers and his co-defendant, Bill Henry Caraway, blamed each other for the murder.

``I'm confused, I'm confused about the law, about what goes on in here, about how people can be so cruel to other inmates. These people are a bunch of con artists. They try to manipulate you. I don't even remember what it's like to be free.''

Flowers is one of 32 juveniles nationwide on death row.

As reports of violent crime by youths increase, new attention has been focused on the highly charged issue of whether people under the age of 18 should be executed.

Prosecutors say many of these adolescents must be executed or given life sentences because they are depraved killers who pose a serious threat to society. Others contend juveniles should be given the

opportunity to put their lives back together. In prison, they argue, juveniles become the targets of older, more hardened inmates.

The United States stands virtually alone among nations in executing juveniles.

``It used to be we felt comfortable with committing young offenders to institutions where dedicated professionals could engage the kids and rehabilitate them. But we have become cynical,'' said Bryan Stevenson, director of the Alabama Capital Resource Center, which defends death-row inmates. ``We have totally given up on the idea of reform or rehabilitation for the very young. We are basically saying we will throw those kids away.''

Many in the legal profession argue that's just the way it should be.

``I've seen 15-year-old kids who were 25 years old, street-wise,'' said District Court Juvenile Judge Robert E. Lewis of Gadsden, Ala.

``Some have reached the point where they are not a thing in this world but vicious predators. I've seen it in 12-year-olds. The jungle is the only place predators can roam free. A civilized society is not supposed to have predators at large. The message ought to be that it is a no-no to go out and kill, and if you do you may pay for it with your life.''

W. Creekmore Wallace II, a Sapulpa, Okla., attorney who has defended more than a dozen death-penalty cases, says there's ``no question'' prosecutors will seek the death penalty more for juveniles who kill.

``Every politician in this state is promising to get tough on juveniles. It's the new catchword,'' Wallace said. ``It's scary but I think we'll see more calls for the death penalty for juveniles.''

The jury that convicted Flowers recommended that he be sentenced to life without parole, but the judge, at District Attorney David Whetstone's urging, overruled the jury and sentenced him to death in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled in (Wayne) Thompson vs. Oklahoma that it is unconstitutional to execute anyone who was 15 at the time of the crime. A year later, the high court upheld death sentences for those who committed a capital offense at age 16 or 17.

Thompson will be paroled in 1998 because his death sentence was set aside by the high court. Thompson and three accomplices shot his brother-in-law, slit his throat and dumped his body in a river because he regularly beat Thompson's half-sister and occasionally beat Thompson.

``Prison has taught me all about respect for other people and patience,'' said Thompson, now 23. At the time of his trial, he read at a fourth-grade level. Today, he reads above the level of a high-school senior, and he has earned his high-school equivalency diploma. He wants to become a welder.

But the precedent set in Thompson's case could be in danger. Some believe the Supreme Court may re-examine the minimum age for executing offenders.

Today, the court is more pro-death penalty than when it issued its landmark ruling on 15-year-olds. It also has lost its leading death-penalty opponent, William Brennan.

Whetstone said the Flowers case presents the court with the perfect opportunity for reconsidering its earlier ruling.

``This case was ready-made for taking to the Supreme Court,'' Whetstone said. ``Here is a very young man whom the state believes to be a great danger to society. Society must be able to protect itself from fiendish acts, even if they are committed by children.''

But Whetstone is unlikely to get any help from the Alabama attorney general's office, which has conceded that Flowers' death sentence was unconstitutional.

As what promises to be a protracted appeal begins, Flowers is locked in his cell 23 hours a day. He watches television and builds jewelry boxes and other items with arts-and-crafts materials supplied by the prison. He said he may try to earn his high-school equivalency diploma.

But he despairs of spending his formative years on death row.

``I don't want that to happen, I don't want to grow up here,'' he said. ``I think about the little things, about marriage, where I'll be in 10 years, where I'll be in 20 years, if I'm even going to be in 20 years, if I'm going to be alive.''