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, violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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posted
So how does the Supreme Court have a say here? Isn’t this an issue that was supposed to be left to the states? And the court quotes foreign laws in their findings. The court has greatly overstepped its bounds again. It’s never a good day when the court tries to legislate.
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posted
Jay, Can you make the case as to why the Supreme Court overstepped its bounds? It's all very well to say that they did, but I'm interested in your reasoning for why that is so. Could you explain?
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posted
I don't understand how it can be cruel and unusual to kill someone who commited their crime before they were 18 and not cruel and unusual to kill someone who commited their crime after they were 18. I mean, I'm sure there are reasons people make the distinction. I merely submit that I'd probably find the reasons stupid.
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posted
"Go ahead.. kill 'em.. you won't be 18 until next week. You won't get the death penalty..."
This really reminds me of an old Oingo Boingo Song. "Only a Lad"
quote:Johnny was bad, even as a child everybody could tell Everyone said if you don’t get straight You’ll surely go to hell
But johnny didn’t care He was an outlaw by the time that he was Ten years old He didn’t wanna do what he was told Just a prankster, juvenile gangster
His teachers didn’t understand They kicked him out of school At a tender early age Just because he didn’t want to learn things (had other interests) He liked to burn things
The lady down the block She had a radio that johnny wanted oh so bad So he took it the first chance he had Then he shot her in the leg And this is what she said Only a lad You really can’t blame him Only a lad Society made him Only a lad He’s our responsibility Only a lad He really couldn’t help it Only a lad He didn’t want to do it Only a lad He’s underprivileged and abused Perhaps a little bit confused
His parents gave up they couldn’t influence his attitude Nobody could help The little man had no gratitude
And when he stole the care Nobody dreamed that he would Try to take it so far He didn’t mean to hit the poor man Who had to go and die It made the judge cry
Only a lad He really couldn’t help it Only a lad He didn’t want to do it Only a lad He’s underprivileged and abused Perhaps a little bit confused
It’s not his fault that he can’t believe It’s not his fault that he can’t behave Society made him go astray Perhaps if we’re nice he’ll go away Perhaps he’ll go away He’ll go away
(repeat chorus)
Hey there johnny you really don’t fool me You get away with murder And you think it’s funny You don’t give a damn if we live or if we die Hey there johnny boy I hope you fry!
posted
This is one of the many cases where I agree with the policy outcome and disagree with the use of judicial review to achieve it.
ElJay's take is correct - the age of the recipient should not be a factor in whether a punishment is cruel or unusual. At the absurd edge, one day can separate someone from the death penalty or life in prison. While I agree with the use of some bright line age rules, these should generally not be judicially imposed. Rather, the legislatures should decide these issues.
Jay is right in result - this should be a state decision - but that does not mean SCOTUS has no role. It is properly the function of SCOTUS to stop states from using cruel and unusual punishments. Where I take issue is with the methodology. I haven't read the case yet, but I'm assuming they're following similar lines to previous 8th amendment cases. In these cases, they examine state laws, and the laws of other countries, to determine if a "social consensus" exists that makes these punishments cruel and unusual. My problem with this is that it uses legislative analysis to define constitutional terms, a dodgy proposition at best. It elevates some states' decisions over other states' decisions, with no real reason given for preferring one to the other. Basically, it provides a short-circuit means for amending the constitution, but only allows it to work in one direction.
posted
I'm with Dag. Even though I don't understand all the legal ramifications, I'm a little uneasy at the WAY this was done, but I'm glad of the outcome.
This is an interesting case, my feelings about legislating from the bench, and the limitation of states' rights is at odds with my feeling that the death penalty should be abolished.
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posted
Thanks, adam. I'm not going to get a chance to read this for at least a week.
Kennedy is much more willing to apply this kind of logic than the other "conservatives" on the Court. He used something similar reasoning in Lawrence to overturn the Texas sodomy ban.
posted
With all the appeals and time it takes to actually put someone to death I’d almost like to see the death penalty replace with some sort of life of hard labor punishment. This would be more of deterrent then killing someone anyway since people work so hard to avoid work. This might make it so the younger DC sniper doesn’t get the death penalty since he was 17 when he shot all those people.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I feel the death penalty should be in affect but needs major reform. Currently most death row inmates spend years on apeal and the act of killing them costs A LOT of money. We should make it so that a death sentance means a death sentance and it should still be painless but cheaper for the american people. I am open to other peoples opinions though and I ask you this, those who are against the death penalty: Why? I can tell you why I am for it: 1.These people have committed dangerous crimes and many are dangerous to keep alive. 2.Most religous laws against killing only apply to innocents. Not Criminals and during wars. 3.Even if we flat out killed everyone on death row right now that amount would be a tiny fraction of the overall population. 4.Life w/out parole costs A LOT of money and many, myself included, would rather be kindly put to death rather than spend a life in prison. I will probably think of more later but thats it for now. Also I don't want this to start a fight I just like a good discussion. So if I am stepping on anyones toes I apoligize in advance, that is not my intention.
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quote:the act of killing them costs A LOT of money.
The actual act of killing is quite cheap. It's the confinement and appeals cost that are astronomical.
Confinement is much more costly on death row than a maximum security prison. There are generally at least 2 appeals tracks to go through: Trial and appeals: trial court->state appellate process->SCOTUS; Collateral attacks via habeas corpus: federal district court->Circuit Court->SCOTUS.
Within each track, decisions can go back down and up the chain several times.
posted
How do you propose to make it cheaper? I thought that the reason we have all those appeals was to (we hope) ensure that we don't execute an innocent person, or one who probably doesn't deserve to die even if they are guilty (someone who was mentally ill to the point they weren't responsible for their actions, for example).
Regarding the point O'Connor made about the death penalty being appropriate for some 16 and 17 year olds---yes, but will a jury really take the time to examine the maturity of the defendant? Will they look at his or her history or mental capacity? If it's not appropriate for a majority or even a large minority of minors, then perhaps it would be best to ban it altogether.
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quote: will a jury really take the time to examine the maturity of the defendant? Will they look at his or her history or mental capacity?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that whether they get tried as a child or an adult is determined in a hearing by a judge. A judge does look at the defendant's history and metal capacity when they make their decision.
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quote: 2.Most religous laws against killing only apply to innocents. Not Criminals and during wars.
Reminds me of a quote: "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." -Voltaire
In my mind, it is wrong to kill. Period. Also, in my mind, the death penalty should never be about the cost of keeping someone imprisoned versus putting them to death.
That being said, sometimes I hear of certain cases and I struggle between my usual thoughts listed above and thinking that the perpetrator(s) should suffer the same fate. Case in point: several years ago, a group of men tied another behind a truck and dragged him until he died a particularly heinous death.
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posted
ElJay - I find the distinction stupid in as much as every age distinction can be considered stupid.
Why is someone not able to drink at 20 years, 11 months and 30 days (or 27 or 29 depending on their birth month ) but is at 21? Why are you not responsible enough to drive at 16 but you are at 17? Why can't you vote the day before your 18th birthday, when if the election had been held a day later you would be able to?
Any age limit that either allows or prohibits a behaviour is going to be arbitrary to a certain extent. Unfortunately, it seems that the only way to have an enforceable and practicable law is to have that arbitrariness.
So in that case, I guess there are two questions:
1. Is it cruel and unusual punishment to sentance children to the death penalty?
and
2. For the purposes of 1, to what age are people considered children?
I would answer yes to the first. Mind you, I disagree with the death penalty as a whole, adult or child. However I can see a distinction between killing a child and killing an adult. Children do not have the same criminal cupability as adults - to varying degrees, depending on their age - because they do not have the complete reasoning / processing skills that an adult does.
But, you say, surely a 17 year old has those skills. That's an age question. So when should we draw the cut-off?
At 17? 16? 15? 14? 13? 12?
I would imagine most people would be uneasy at best about executing a 12 year old. So let's go up from there - maybe 16.
I don't have such a problem with this (although it does go against all international legal definitions of the "child") IF other laws also change.
If they can be executed at 16 they should also be able to vote, drive, drink, have sex (with either gender) and have all the other responsibilities that come with being a legal adult. If 16 is too young for these behaviours then I'd suggest 16 is also too young for the death penalty.
The same argument can be made for any age.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
As silly as they often seem when broken down, I think age distinctions *have* to be arbitrary when it comes to law. Not to mention the differences in individual maturity of the person being charged/considered, one has to account also for the differences in mind of the people reviewing them and deciding how they should be tried/categorized, which would be necessary were arbitrary set age limits not in place. (Humans are just too darn unique, eh?) Imperfect humans judging other imperfect humans creates only more variance than arbitrary laws (to a point).
As for this case, I personally think it's cruel and unusual punishment to kill anyone, regardless of age or crime. I don't support the idea of blaming all crime and criminals on society and absolving all individual responsibility, but then I don't believe in 'blame' as a valid concept per se either. I believe there are dangerous people that should not be walking the streets but I don't think they should be hated the way they often are for what their evil potential is. Thus, I obviously don't think they should be killed off.
My main problem I guess is that there doesn't seem to be a way around the paradoxical concept of prison in general. It's there as a deterrent so people avoid crime for fear of going to jail. The people in jail, however, obviously needed a stronger deterrent or else were forced into crime by situation, so the deterrent they're experiencing has no effect, unless it stops them from repeated crime. This all said, the deterrent can be argued as effective because of all the people who don't end up in jail, but then, is it ethical to punish and use Citizen A simply so that Citizen B can say "I'm better than Citizen A and that's what makes me a good person" when the people who arguably need help are the Citizen A's for whom the deterrent didn't work and there are other ways to induce personal self-worth and good citizenship in Citizen B?
As well, I ought to add that my own religion comes into my view here as I hold all life generally sacred and unnecessary killing bothers me. But that's another topic.
And I may have gotten offtopic slightly here. Apologies. It's all tied in.
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quote:3.Even if we flat out killed everyone on death row right now that amount would be a tiny fraction of the overall population.
Orange7Penguin, this is not much of an argument for the death penalty.
I think some deserve death as punishment for crimes, but the system that has evolved to do this in the US is hopelessly, irreformably unfair and so I am against the death penalty.
quote:The United States has stood almost alone in the world in officially sanctioning juvenile executions, a "stark reality" that can't be ignored, Kennedy wrote. Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in only a few other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia.
from the link in the 1st post. Jay, is that really an exclusive club the US wants to be a member of? All of these countries have huge human rights violations, and we can do better. It's not just Europeans who decry the death penalty for juvenile defendants, as Ms. Clements in the article griped: only a tiny handful of countries still kill juvenile defendants.
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posted
It seems to me that if the death penalty is appropriate for murderers (that's a big if), then if you're old enough to murder, then you're old enough to be executed for it. Posts: 1002 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
imogen... mostly I was trying to say that I think the death penalty is stupid, period. Regardless of age. But if you're going to put age limits on it, then I'm totally with you on the drinking/sex/voting/everything else.
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But you know, never waste an opportunity for a good rant.
Anticool (I still think of you as mph) - would you agree with me about the whole sex/alcohol/voting/driving thing?
I would assume (sorry! I know you hate that) that you don't. Am I wrong?
And if I'm not - how do you personally reconcile the idea of someone being a child for the purpose of one set of responsibilities and benefits but not for the death penalty?
Which is a kinda serious responsibility/burden.
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posted
Morbo, this is an issue I'm having trouble making up my mind on. But as usual, I'm uncomfortable with the "everybody else is doing it" argument. Is executing 17-year-olds really that heinous, or are Western countries just being squeamish?
It's one thing to have high standards. It's another thing to put people at risk just to maintain your standards. . . . . . . *winces* I can't resist... If everyone except China, Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? *takes off faux parent hat*
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quote: Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in only a few other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia.
from the link in the 1st post. Jay, is that really an exclusive club the US wants to be a member of? All of these countries have huge human rights violations, and we can do better. It's not just Europeans who decry the death penalty for juvenile defendants, as Ms. Clements in the article griped: only a tiny handful of countries still kill juvenile defendants.
This might be a reason to vote down the death penalty for 17 and 18 year olds (that's all this case was about, not executing all children), but it's absolutely not a reason to invoke the power of judicial review.
quote: If they can be executed at 16 they should also be able to vote, drive, drink, have sex (with either gender) and have all the other responsibilities that come with being a legal adult.
Actually, I've read some good reasons why the drinking age should be kept where it is. I read an article in Discover several years ago that indicated that alcohol has a much more long-term deleterious affect on teenage brains and even on people in the early 20's. That's compounded by the fact that it takes more alcohol to produce the same affect in young people than older people. If you think you can't drink as much as when you were in college, you're right.
I remembered that article because it scared the bejeebers out of me. If anybody has any interest, I'll see if I can find the article again.
For the record, I'm against the death penalty period. It accomplishes nothing that life-in-prison doesn't.
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quote: It seems to me that if the death penalty is appropriate for murderers (that's a big if), then if you're old enough to murder, then you're old enough to be executed for it.
So if your legs are long enough to reach the pedals, should one be able to drive (being a tall lad, I would have been driving at 12!)? If one is able to bring a glass of liquid to one's lips, can they drink alcohol (toddler drinking, baby!)? If one can tolerate watching a Presidential debate, can they vote (only can barely vote)? Just wondering. Posts: 896 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
caveat: This whole post assumes that the death penalty is sometimes appropriate, and I will therefore not address the issue. Except for here. Stopping now. ..... now.
quote:Anticool (I still think of you as mph) - would you agree with me about the whole sex/alcohol/voting/driving thing?
I'm not sure that I do. Sex, alchohol, voting, and driving are things that we expect everybody to be able to do once they are adults. It's a right or a priveledge, depending on how you define those words.
Murder and execution are not. Nobody is entitled to murder. Nobody is deserving of execution unless they have murdered. People don't get executed because they are now adults. They get executed because they murdered another human being.
To me, being worthy of execution has nothing to do with whether they are able to have sex, drink alchohol, drive, or vote. It has to do with their crime.
quote:So if your legs are long enough to reach the pedals, should one be able to drive (being a tall lad, I would have been driving at 12!)? If one is able to bring a glass of liquid to one's lips, can they drink alcohol (toddler drinking, baby!)? If one can tolerate watching a Presidential debate, can they vote (only can barely vote)? Just wondering. [Big Grin]
posted
I'd be very interested in reading that article, zgator.
I wonder what group of people they polled/tested to determine those results...your average "drink every night til you pass out" college co-ed probably would have some "deleterious effects" to their brains...but what about those of us "under-agers" who have one or two drinks every few nights?
I would be really interested in what that article has to say.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I find it most fascinating that the state with the most to lose in all of this is Texas, with 29 kids under the age of 18 waiting for execution on death row.
Out of that list, though, I think that two or three are actually slated to be killed and eaten, not just killed.
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posted
I found it archived at discover.com. The article is called "Getting Stupid" from 3/01, but you have to be a subscriber to get to it. If anyone wants a copy of it, send me an email.
Leo, it does pertain primarily to binge drinking, so I think you're OK. Here's a few excerpts from it:
quote:Students who drink heavily sometimes joke that they are killing a few brain cells. New research suggests that this is not funny. Some of the evidence is anatomical: Michael De Bellis at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the hippocampi of subjects 14 to 21 years old who abused alcohol to the hippocampi of those who did not. He found that the longer and the more a young person had been drinking, the smaller his hippocampus. The average size difference between healthy teens and alcohol abusers was roughly 10 percent. That is a lot of brain cells.
quote:The teens with alcohol problems had a harder time recalling information, both verbal and nonverbal, that they had learned 20 minutes earlier. Words such as apple and football escaped them. The performance difference was about 10 percent. "It's not serious brain damage, but it's the difference of a grade, a pass or a fail," Tapert says. Other tests evaluated skills needed for map learning, geometry, or science. Again, there was a 10 percent difference in performance.
quote:During adolescence, the balance of dopamine activity temporarily shifts away from the nucleus accumbens, the brain's key pleasure and reward center, to the prefrontal cortex. Linda Spear, a developmental psychobiologist at Binghamton University in New York, speculates that as a result of this shift in balance, teenagers may find drugs less rewarding than earlier or later in life. And if the drugs produce less of a kick, more will be needed for the same effect. "In the case of alcohol, this may lead to binge drinking," she says.
quote: As well, I ought to add that my own religion comes into my view here as I hold all life generally sacred and unnecessary killing bothers me. But that's another topic.
What in your definition is necessary killing? Also my statement on the fractional percentage of people on death row compared to the overall population was not inorder to downplay the fact that its killing people but rather to outline the fact that couldn't it be worth it to just kill these few people so that the greater population and good can be serviced? I am no supporter of killing for a cause but these are convicted felons and criminals, not good people! It is only in this modern day that mankind has taken to worrying about things like this. Even one hundred years ago no one would have thought it wrong to string up a murderer or rapist and hang him. Not that is neccarily a good thing but don't forget that without that hard line back then we wouldn't have the nice, peacefull civilizion that we have today and without that civilization we wouldn't have the luxary of worrying about things like is it ok to kill an axe murderer. So remember the only reason we are having this debate is because the death penalty made it possible.
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Necessary killing in my view is anything necessary for food/basic survival, such as the hunting practiced in hunting-gathering societies. It's worthwhile to mention a standard belief in *all* hunt-gath. societies is a deep and abiding respect for the animals and plants they use from the realization that there could easily *not* be an abundance of these things at any time.
As for servicing the good of the rest of the people by killing off the 'bad ones', I might ask who exactly you or any other singular human is to decide 'good' and 'bad'. These are entirely relative terms created by humans. Do humans rule the earth? In a resource-based scheme, perhaps, yes. Does this make us unarguably 'better' than all other living creatures? Well, "better" is a term we created. We're all alive, and we all came from that same crossopterygian fish loooong ago (okay, not *all* technically. But I could go further back). So if we killed off every single living thing that humans are "better than", we'd find pretty quick it wasn't a good idea. Similarly, who are we to say law-abiding people are "better than" people in jail and kill them simply for that? Who knows where that would lead us either? You can't just kill something because of a moral judgment -- keep in mind you are **ending the existence of** a life. Some religions believe in an afterlife, sure, but none of that is proven even by a faulty human definition of proof, so who are we to potentially rob someone of *everything*, in the most literal sense of the word? To do that's a pretty hefty crime yourself. Sure, maybe they did it to someone else, but here comes the 'eye for an eye leads only to more blindness' (quotation thanks to M.Atwood) theory that's overquoted but true. No, I don't think murderers and felons should be walking out free to kill 'good people' as they choose, but I don't think we non-felons ought to be free to kill whoever we choose from the 'bad ones' either. As the Princess Bride says, life isn't fair. Nor can it be. Nor perhaps should it be. Would humans still exist if one had always died for every animal or plant we ever killed to stay alive? Doubt it. Who are we to try making that balance within our own species? Especially on the basis of such an imperfect moral code.
quote:we wouldn't have the nice, peacefull civilizion that we have today
Where ARE you living????? I wish I were there... Civilization (and before) has always had killing, and there have always been standards surrounding when it was acceptable and when it wasn't. Early on, these probably revolved around food and survival and self-defense, but now and over the last 5000-8000 years or so it's been steadily moving on in my opinion to centre on a much scarier, more arbitrary moral code which is a lot harder to pin down or change because we're all heartily conditioned in its ways so deeply that even *we* can't explain why we think what we do about morals and social judgment. How can we judge others when we can't even judge ourselves from an objective viewpoint?
(Incidentally, the "you"s in this aren't you specifically, but a general "you")
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quote: Sex, alchohol, voting, and driving are things that we expect everybody to be able to do once they are adults. It's a right or a priveledge, depending on how you define those words.
But why have a demarcation for these "rights" or "priveledge(s)" at all? I put them in quotes because I don't really know how you define them. But why have a young adult wait until they are 16 to drive a car but 18 to vote but 21 to drink? And, well, sex is a whole other ballgame (there is no legal age to have sex...only an age where it is "rape" if the person on partner is older than 18 and the other younger).
Isn't there already a demarcation in the law how we treat criminals who are underage? For example, if I stole some money, busted up a person's car and got caught smoking pot as a 16 year old, isn't that record "cleared" the moment I turn 18? Don't we hold crimes of children separate from those of an adult, only making exceptions for the most heinous crimes? Why not allow a child's petty criminal activity (meaning non-murder/rape activity) to be part of their permanent record? Why expunge this information? Doesn't this seem to indicate that "well, they were just kids and may not have known what they were doing." I am not saying I agree with this but doesn't this support the SCOTUS decision to some degree?
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quote: These people have committed dangerous crimes and many are dangerous to keep alive.
I'm sorry, but since there is a number of innocents sentenced to death, this is wrong. I mean, with a life-long sentence for an innocent, there is always hope that he can be proved innocent. If you kill someone, all hope is over.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:But why have a demarcation for these "rights" or "priveledge(s)" at all? I put them in quotes because I don't really know how you define them. But why have a young adult wait until they are 16 to drive a car but 18 to vote but 21 to drink? And, well, sex is a whole other ballgame (there is no legal age to have sex...only an age where it is "rape" if the person on partner is older than 18 and the other younger).
There are reasons to have an age demarcation for every single one of those things. There are reasons why we want people to be able to drive even if they aren't able to vote yet, etc.. It doesn't matter if you agree with the specifics of that case -- all I'm saying is that to me there's nothing wrong with there being different ages at which we are allowed to do different things.
quote:Isn't there already a demarcation in the law how we treat criminals who are underage? For example, if I stole some money, busted up a person's car and got caught smoking pot as a 16 year old, isn't that record "cleared" the moment I turn 18? Don't we hold crimes of children separate from those of an adult, only making exceptions for the most heinous crimes? Why not allow a child's petty criminal activity (meaning non-murder/rape activity) to be part of their permanent record? Why expunge this information? Doesn't this seem to indicate that "well, they were just kids and may not have known what they were doing." I am not saying I agree with this but doesn't this support the SCOTUS decision to some degree?
Yeah, it does support that. But I wasn't talking about how things are legally. I was talking about how I personally think things ought to be.
posted
I do agree that it was proved that their were too many innocents on death row in recent years but many of that was proved through DNA testing. In new cases this won't happen because DNA testing is being used right at the trial stage so it won't be like twenty years from now someone says DNA testing proves them innocent because that testing would have been used at the trial.
As to say whats good and whats evil I have to agree with you. Good and Evil are fictions created by humanity. If a wolf kills a dear is it evil, no. What is allowed and what is not allowed is decided by the society that you live in. Did the cannibalistic tribes think themselves evil? No because it was considered good and decent in the society they lived in. So why do I support the death penalty? Too put it simply: in modern days soceity has deemed things wrong and evil and those that live in that society have to either abide by those rules or suffer the consequences.
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