murderer could potentially negate the prosecution’s
attempt to seek death on behalf of the state. For in-
stance, the 2002Atkins v. Virginiacase established
that mentally retarded offenders could not be exe-
cuted. Typically these “exception” arguments are
supported by the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel
and unusual punishment.” As in theAtkinscase,
Thompsonwas argued on Eighth Amendment
grounds and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. Exe-
cuting a fifteen-year-old was found to be cruel and
unusual, and the Fourteenth Amendment applied
this clause of the Eighth Amendment to the states.
Impact The larger societal issue that theThomp-
soncase raised was the appropriateness of the state-
sanctioned execution of minors. Under the legal con-
cept ofparens patriae, juveniles have traditionally
been treated with different rights and obligations
than adults. Though this concept has been variously
interpreted, it was not unusual for the American jus-
tice system to treat children as adults in cases of per-
petrating murder. This practice met with both inter-
national disdain, as the United States was one of the
few countries to permit the practice, and ire among
the country’s voters. TheThompsoncase was the first
to limit the practice, hence saving minors fifteen
years and younger from the death penalty. This find-
ing was not only popular but also supported by con-
temporary psychiatric evidence on the reduced cul-
pability of minors resulting from the incomplete
maturation of the adolescent brain. However, the ex-
ecution of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds contin-
ued afterThompson.
Further Reading
Fagan, Jeffrey. “Atkins, Adolescences, and the Matu-
rity Heuristic: Rationales for a Categorical Ex-
emption for Juveniles from Capital Punishment.”
New Mexico Law Review33 (Spring, 2003): 207-
254.
Skovron, Sandra Evans, Joseph E. Scott, and Francis
T. Cullen. “The Death Penalty for Juveniles: An
Assessment of Public Support.”Crime and Delin-
quency35, no. 4 (1989): 546-561.
R. Matthew Beverlin
See also Crime; Supreme Court decisions.
Times Beach dioxin scare
The Event Pollution incident destroys a town
Date 1982-1997
Place Times Beach, MissouriDioxin spraying of Times Beach, population 2,240, made
it one of the most toxic areas in the United States. The town
was so polluted that the U.S. government purchased the en-
tire town and evacuated its residents.During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Russell Bliss,
a waste hauler, was hired to oil the dusty roads and
horse arenas of Times Beach, Missouri, twenty-five
miles southwest of St. Louis, near Interstate 44. Not
knowing it was toxic, on May 26, 1971, Bliss mixed
carcinogenic dioxin-contaminated waste with two
thousand gallons of oil. He sprayed the contami-
nated oil on the town’s roads.
During 1982, more than ten years later, the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency (EPA) took soil sam-
ples at various sites in Missouri to test for dioxin lev-
els and found extremely high levels in the soil at
Times Beach. The 2,240 citizens of Times Beach dis-
covered that they were sitting on one of the most
toxic patches of earth in the United States. In Febru-
ary, 1983, the EPA announced plans to purchase the
entire town for almost $33 million in Superfund
moneys and sealed it off. The deserted town was
listed as a Superfund site and awaited cleanup. The
cleanup would occur in the next decade, during
which dioxin-contaminated materials would be in-
cinerated, spreading the dioxin into the atmosphere
and dispersing it across the planet.Impact The Times Beach dioxin scare brought fur-
ther attention to the toxic substances contaminating
portions of the country and the planet. It provided
some impetus to environmental activists, and it in-
creased the growing sense during the 1980’s that the
world was a dangerous place, largely as a result of hu-
man activity.
Within two months after Times Beach shut down
its incinerator, dioxin was discovered in soil of the
west St. Louis County suburb of Ellisville. Officials
with the EPA said that a private driveway in Ellisville
had dioxin levels as high as 195 parts per billion,
many times the level it considered safe. In dry soil, a
concentration of 50 parts per billion is considered
hazardous waste; 3 parts per billion is the standard
for edible food.970 Times Beach dioxin scare The Eighties in America