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MarkG
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Grand Lord of Apolyton, Owner of all this land as far as the eye can see
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quote:
High court strikes down death penalty for juveniles
WASHINGTON - 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 Arizona and 18 other 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.
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.
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.
Currently, 19 states allow executions for people under age 18: Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Texas and Virginia.
In a dissent, Scalia decried the decision, arguing that there has been no clear trend of declining juvenile executions to justify a growing consensus against the practice.
"The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: 'In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty,' he wrote in a 24-page dissent.
"The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards," Scalia wrote. |
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shawnmmcc
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One of the reasons this has been advocated is because it has been shown the juveniles are materially less able to help in their defense (this also obviously applies to the mentally retarded). In interviews with both defense and prosecuting attornies, NPR did a special and both groups often agreed that many juveniles would flip-flop radically on plea agreements and testimony based on their mood for the day.
Essentially many juveniles (not all) are not materially able to help in their defense. This essentially means that they are not responsible, in the sense of an adult. Besides the process issues, which I have expounded on in probably numbing length in the past, I am very mixed about this. I subscribe to the "Prevention of harm" theory of incarceration, and is a rabid little animal, like that boy in Missouri, get's lose in the future, he may very well kill again. The fact he bragged about how he could not be executed shows there is some deterrent effect, at least in isolated cases.
If we could fix the US justice system, I might support the execution of minors for henious crimes. Since I do not believe that is possible, given that there is not a sufficiently large constituency for it, I will take the best I can get. Sadly, that is this decision.
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01-03-2005 21:02
Er?
Great news!
@ sig 
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