Justices Abolish Death Penalty For Juveniles.

[Shattered]

Justices abolish death penalty for juveniles
5-4 decision affects 70 cases; Kennedy pens majority's view

The Associated Press

Updated: 10:33 a.m. ET March 1, 2005WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, ending a practice used in 19 states.

The 5-4 decision throws out the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes.

The executions, the court said, were unconstitutionally cruel.

Earlier ban
It was the second major defeat at the high court in three years for supporters of the death penalty. Justices in 2002 banned the execution of the mentally retarded, also citing the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

The court had already outlawed executions for those who were 15 and younger when they committed their crimes.

Tuesday’s ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible for execution.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted that most states don’t allow the execution of juvenile killers and those that do use the penalty infrequently. The trend, he noted, was to abolish the practice.

“Our society views juveniles ... as categorically less culpable than the average criminal,” Kennedy wrote.

Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in just a few other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia. All those countries have gone on record as opposing capital punishment for minors.

The Supreme Court has permitted states to impose capital punishment since 1976 and more than 3,400 inmates await execution in the 38 states that allow death sentences.

Kennedy joins more liberal justices
Justices were called on to draw an age line in death cases after Missouri’s highest court overturned the death sentence given to a 17-year-old Christopher Simmons, who kidnapped a neighbor in Missouri, hog-tied her and threw her off a bridge. Prosecutors say he planned the burglary and killing of Shirley Crook in 1993 and bragged that he could get away with it because of his age.

The four most liberal justices had already gone on record in 2002, calling it “shameful” to execute juvenile killers. Those four, joined by Kennedy, also agreed with Tuesday’s decision: Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as expected, voted to uphold the executions. They were joined by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7051296

What's wrong with this picture? Why is a 15 year old that kills someone in cold blood for whatever reason any less culpable than a 30 year old? WTF!

 

[OCA]

Just another step for big government intrusion upon states rights.

Watch as the number of juvenile murders rise, adults will now try to contract underage killers.

 

[SmarterThanYou]

we already excuse mothers who kill their children, why should juveniles be any different. /sarcasm off

pretty screwed up ruling if you ask me.

 

[Merlin1047]

[What's wrong with this picture? Why is a 15 year old that kills someone in cold blood for whatever reason any less culpable than a 30 year old? WTF!

I don't have a clue. It seems to be a pretty novel interpretation of the 8th amendment. I see nothing cruel or unusual about executing cold-blooded murderers.

 

[TheEnemyWithin]

What's wrong with this picture? Why is a 15 year old that kills someone in cold blood for whatever reason any less culpable than a 30 year old? WTF!

Well, you see, they want to give the fifteen-year-old time to make it with his girlfriends, therefore keeping Planned Parenthood in buisness.

 

[TheEnemyWithin]

I don't have a clue. It seems to be a pretty novel interpretation of the 8th amendment. I see nothing cruel or unusual about executing cold-blooded murderers.

Doesn't cold-blooded murder sound MORE cruel and unusual to anyone?

MY GOD, Savage is telling a disgusting story about two Mexican 17 year old gang members who raped and killed two girls by railroad tracks in Houston. "Their rotting bodies were found four days later, MISS GINSBURG! I say if you can pull a trigger you should get the death penalty!"

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a domestic terrorist. :alco: OH, what I would give to bitch-slap her on national TV!!!

 

[5stringJeff]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a domestic terrorist. :alco: OH, what I would give to bitch-slap her on national TV!!!

I think that may be going a bit far, even if we do agree that the ruling was wrong.

 

[Annie]

I get the feeling we have seen the opening salvos of 'international law' intervening on the national courts:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/11024711.htm

...The ruling also touched on international law and opinion, which also has become the source of an increasingly sharp divide on the court.

Kennedy, along with Breyer, Ginsburg and O'Connor, has repeatedly acknowledged that standards of decency and morality abroad should have some effect on American law.

"It does not lessen our fidelity to the Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations ... simply underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom," Kennedy wrote in Tuesday's ruling.

But Scalia opposed such thinking.

"What these foreign sources `affirm,' rather than repudiate, is the Justices' own notion of how the world ought to be, and their diktat that it shall be so henceforth in America," Scalia wrote.

 

[Johnney]

this has to be one of the most nauseating things ive seen in a while.
if you can do the crime...
but then again, we need to keep them alive so they can be a drag on our taxes. its the American thing to do

 

[Bullypulpit]

Like it or not, there is a whole world beyond the borders of the US. The complaints about international law "intervening in the national courts" is simply so much isolationist nonsense.

When the US signed the Fourth Geneva Convention, it, in essence, agreed that the minimum age for capital cases is 18 years of age. The US made no exception or disagreement with Article 68, para 5 of the <a href=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva1.html>Convention</a> which states:

<blockquote>In any case, the death penalty may not be pronounced on a protected person who was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offence.(1.)</blockquote>

So, children in occupied countries in a time of war had the very protection that children were being denied within America's borders in a time of peace.

It is a profound failure of our society when our children are tried as adults, let alone executed. The execution of minors has been foresworn or outlawed by every nation in the world, except one..until today...The US. Punishment, not vengeance is the hallmark of an effective criminal jsutice system, and America has gone too far in its quest for vengeance. It's time to stop.


Citations:

(1.) The Fourth Geneva Convention, found at:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva1.html

For more information see:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510581998

 

[Johnney]

Like it or not, there is a whole world beyond the borders of the US. The complaints about international law "intervening in the national courts" is simply so much isolationist nonsense.

When the US signed the Fourth Geneva Convention, it, in essence, agreed that the minimum age for capital cases is 18 years of age. The US made no exception or disagreement with Article 68, para 5 of the <a href=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva1.html>Convention</a> which states:

<blockquote>In any case, the death penalty may not be pronounced on a protected person who was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offence.(1.)</blockquote>

So, children in occupied countries in a time of war had the very protection that children were being denied within America's borders in a time of peace.

It is a profound failure of our society when our children are tried as adults, let alone executed. The execution of minors has been foresworn or outlawed by every nation in the world, except one..until today...The US. Punishment, not vengeance is the hallmark of an effective criminal jsutice system, and America has gone too far in its quest for vengeance. It's time to stop.


Citations:

(1.) The Fourth Geneva Convention, found at:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva1.html

For more information see:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510581998

bullshit.
if some little bastard can pull the trigger, slash a throat, choke someone dead, they can suffer the after affects. :blah2:

 

[Bullypulpit]

bullshit.
if some little bastard can pull the trigger, slash a throat, choke someone dead, they can suffer the after affects. :blah2:

And then there is the issue of juvenile offenders and cognitive development.

<a href=http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/juv_justice/release20041008.html>US Surgeons General, Hundreds of Leading Child Health Professionals, Neuroscientists and Key Medical Organizations Call to End Execution of Juvenile Offenders</a>

<a href=http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/juv_justice/ropervsimmons.html>Roper v Simmons: The Constitutionality of the Juvenile Death Penalty</a>

 

[Shattered]

Why? Why is a 17 year old unable to face the death penalty, but an 18 year old can? Same body, same brain, same everything. The only difference is at 18 they can legally buy their own damn weapons, whereas at 17 they have to break yet another law and steal them. This is the biggest line of shit I've heard in a looooooooooong time, and it actually makes me *angry*.

 

[krisy]

Why? Why is a 17 year old unable to face the death penalty, but an 18 year old can? Same body, same brain, same everything. The only difference is at 18 they can legally buy their own damn weapons, whereas at 17 they have to break yet another law and steal them. This is the biggest line of shit I've heard in a looooooooooong time, and it actually makes me *angry*.

Just what I was thinking. 17 or 18,what is the big difference? These teens know right and wrong. They are given adult priveldges such as driving a car,why shouldn't they accept adult punishment?

 

[no1tovote4]

I personally believe that the Death Penalty is not a strong enough penalty for one who has taken the most fundamental right of life from somebody else. I think they should be locked in an 8X8 cell 24/7 with no contact with other prisoners or guards except on 1 day a week where they are allowed 30 min to excercise while being watched by guards. Never to be set free, but to only leave when they are placed in that narrow box assigned to all the living.

Supermax should be extended to fit this particular bill.

 

[Shattered]

I personally believe that the Death Penalty is not a strong enough penalty for one who has taken the most fundamental right of life from somebody else. I think they should be locked in an 8X8 cell 24/7 with no contact with other prisoners or guards except on 1 day a week where they are allowed 30 min to excercise while being watched by guards. Never to be set free, but to only leave when they are placed in that narrow box assigned to all the living.

Supermax should be extended to fit this particular bill.

But it still costs money to support them, and that money can damn well be used for more productive purposes than to keep some useless jackass alive and well fed.

What *I* think should happen is the immediate family of the deceased should choose *how* the jackass is punished/put to death. If they choose to let him/her live, they pay for the food, and upkeep. Should they choose death, then it should be lethal injection at no cost to them, unless they want to foot the bill for another method.

 

[no1tovote4]

But it still costs money to support them, and that money can damn well be used for more productive purposes than to keep some useless jackass alive and well fed.

What *I* think should happen is the immediate family of the deceased should choose *how* the jackass is punished/put to death. If they choose to let him/her live, they pay for the food, and upkeep. Should they choose death, then it should be lethal injection at no cost to them, unless they want to foot the bill for another method.

Except it costs more to kill them than to keep them, each of the legal battles they fight add up to more after the prisoner is executed than it costs to keep them alive until natural death. There would be less cost than you think, Supermax costs less than regular prisons because there are less guards needed, the prisoners are only let out of their cells under very controlled conditions.

The whole idea that victims should pay for the imprisonment is a little bit biased toward the whole death thing. No person would likely choose to pay for the perpetrator, they would choose to have him killed in your scenario. The Justice system isn't used for revenge, but justice. We must be willing to pay the cost to actually punish the perpetrators rather than simply getting them out of the way.

 

[Shattered]

So what amount of "punishment" is good enough for a murderer, then? Why should their victims be dead, and their families be without, while they live, get clothed, housed, fed, and in your scenario, allowed access to exercise equipment?

If your spouse, parents, or children were one of the victims, would you be satisfied knowing this monster is still alive and well, while you're lacking one of the most important people in your life?

 

[Shattered]

Oh, and if lethal injection costs too much...a bullet to the head, then. Bullets are cheap.

 

[no1tovote4]

So what amount of "punishment" is good enough for a murderer, then? Why should their victims be dead, and their families be without, while they live, get clothed, housed, fed, and in your scenario, allowed access to exercise equipment?

If your spouse, parents, or children were one of the victims, would you be satisfied knowing this monster is still alive and well, while you're lacking one of the most important people in your life?

As I said, Supermax is far more punishment than you may think. Alone with no contact in a cell 24/7. They get 30 min out to excercise alone while under guard, but that for me is negotiable I would prefer murderers to get none of that. And for me that is more punishment than death would ever be. Especially the inability to access books, etc.

Death will come for them, after they get their punishment...

Maybe you could give the prisoner a choice for lethal injection, but I think that that is too humane for them.