now safe from "cruel and unusual punishment" for their childhood crimes

In a 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that executing juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment - thus outlawing the executions of death row inmates who committed their crimes when they were juveniles. This ruling removes 72 inmates from death rows nationwide. After reading numerous articles regarding this decision I've put together this sampling of some of the "children" now safe from "cruel and unusual punishment" for their childhood crimes:

1). Lee Boyd Malvo can no longer face the death penalty for his role in the 10 sniper killings over the three-week span in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. in 2002.

2). Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal of Harris County (Houston),were 17 when they and three others of the gang-raped and beat to death teenagers Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena. The girls were repeatedly raped before being strangled and stomped to death. The girls' rotting bodies were found four days later. 14 year old Ertman's teeth were kicked in and she was strangled with a belt and 16 year old Pena's jaw was broken before she was strangled by her shoelaces. (Perez and Villarreal were 17 at the time.)

3). Robert Springsteen of Travis County (Austin), convicted at 17 in 2001 of the infamous ``Yogurt Shop'' slayings in which four teenage girls were bound, gagged and fatally shot in the head at a yogurt shop a decade earlier.

4). Jorge Alfredo Salinas, who at 17 carjacked a man in Hidalgo County (McAllen) in July 2001, fatally shot him in the head, and left the man's 21-month-old daughter to die of dehydration and exposure strapped in her car seat in a brush area near the Rio Grande.

5). Johnnie Bernal, who was one day shy of his 18th birthday when he shot and killed Lee Dilley as he stood outside a Houston drive-in with his high school prom date.

6). Michael Lopez, who was 17 shot Harris County deputy constable Michael Eakin to death during a traffic stop in 1998.

7). Kevin Golphin was 17 when he murdered a N.C. Highway Patrol trooper and a Cumberland County sheriff's deputy in 1997.

8). Thomas Mark Adams who was 17 when he murdered a 70-year-old Davie County, NC woman.

9). Travis Walters was 17 when he murdered Betty Jane Oxendine at the Hardee's restaurant in Lumberton,NC where she worked.

10). Lamorris Chapman was 17 when he murdered Seleana Nesbitt, 16. Nesbitt was killed when a spray of bullets struck her and another teenager from behind as they traveled home from a Zebulon, NC nightclub.

11). Eric Dale Morgan was 17 at the time he gunned down Jerry Smith outside a family-owned convenience store in Spartanburg County,SC.

12). Ted Benjamin “Benji” Powers was 16 when he stabbed a 68-year-old Gaston, SC man to death during a robbery. The man and his wife were asleep in their home.

13). Herman Hughes was 16 when he gunned down an employee in a video gambling parlor in a botched armed robbery in Calhoun County South Carolina.

14). Eric Morgan was 17 when he killied a clerk at a Spartanburg County,SC convenience store during a robbery. Morgan waited for 57-year-old Jerry Smith to close the store, then shot him once in the head with a .22 caliber rifle from a parked car and took more than $7,000 cash. Morgan and co-defendant Brandon Duncan, who was 16 at the time, planned on killing Smith a few nights before, but abandoned the plan when Smith closed the store with another person because they did not want to have to dispose of two bodies. Investigators also found a pipe bomb that Morgan planned to use to blow up the store, according to court testimony.

15). Kevin Hughes was a week short of his 17th birthday when he abducted 9 year old Rochelle Graham from a Pennsylvania school playground ~ he took this child to a vacant house where he then sexually assaulted and strangled her before setting her body on fire. The crime went unsolved for 10 months, until another girl, 13, identified Hughes' photograph to police after she also was attacked and sexually assaulted.

16). Shermaine A. Johnson was 16 when he raped and stabbed Hope Denise Hall ~ Johnson already was serving prison sentences totaling 100 years for the rapes of two Franklin, Va., women when his DNA was matched with evidence found in Hall's apartment.

17). Stephen Virgil McGilberry, was 16 when he killed four members of his family with a baseball bat in the family's St. Martin home in Jackson County, Mississippi.

18). Kenneth Laird of Arizonia told friends he wanted the pick-up truck Wanda Starnes' owned so the 17 year old broke into Starnes' Scottsdale home while she was at work and laid in wait for her. When Starnes returned home Laird ambushed her, tied, gagged and locked her in a bathroom. He then slept in her bed. When he awoke, he choked Starnes with a rope and bashed her skull. He drove her body to the desert to bury her, blood dripping from the truck and then spent the next few days driving her truck and forging checks from her account.

19). Dale Dwayne Craig was 17 when he ambushed and abducted Kipp Gullet and stole his van from a Louisiana State University dormitory parking lot. Though the victim cried and begged for mercy Craig fired three bullets into his head as the Gullet lay on the ground in a fetal position.

20). Nathan Ramirez, was 17 murdered of 71-year-old Mildred Boroski of Florida. Boroski, a widow, was in bed sleeping hours after her birthday party when Ramirez and an 18-year-old friend broke into her home, hoping to steal gifts and money. The pair beat her dog to death with a crowbar, then lashed Boroski to her bed, where she was raped and beaten. They then forced her into her own car and drove to a remote field where they forced her to get out and walk into the field and lie down ~ Ramirez then shot Boroski twice in the head.

21). Cleo LeCroy was 17 when he fatally shot a newlywed couple from Miami- Dade who were camping in rural Palm Beach County south of Lake Okeechobee in January 1981. The bodies of John and Gail Hardeman were found about a week after they didn't return home. John Hardeman had been shot in the head; Gail Hardeman had been shot in the head, neck and chest. (because the murders were committed in 1981, LeCroy will be eligible for parole in a few years.)

22). James Bonifay was17 when he meant to kill a clerk at an auto parks store whom Bonifay's cousin blamed for getting him fired ~ the clerk called in sick and was replaced by Billy Wayne Coker, whom Bonifay shot and killed.

I appreciate that - however, the flawed reasoning behind this decision and the overt usurpation of state's powers are truly troublesome to me.

In case you've not read the ruling, here is what I find troublesome ~

From Justice Kennedy's delivery of the opinion of the court: (Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer supported).

"... The objective indicia of national consensus here -

the rejection of the juvenile death penalty in the majority of states;
the infrequency of its use even where it remains on the books;
and the consistency in the trend toward abolition of the practice -

provide sufficient evidence that today society views juveniles ... as "categorically less culpable than the average criminal." ...

Capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit "a narrow category of the most serious crimes" and whose extreme culpability makes them "the most deserving of execution."

Three general differences between juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.

Juveniles' susceptibility to immature and irresponsible behavior means their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult. ...

Their own vulnerability and comparative lack of control over their immediate surroundings mean juveniles have a greater claim than adults to be forgiven for failing to escape negative influences in their whole environment. ...

The reality that juveniles still struggle to define their identity means it is less supportable to conclude that even a heinous crime committed by a juvenile is evidence of irretrievably depraved character.

The overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty is not controlling here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the court's determination that the penalty is disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia chastised his colleagues for taking power from the states. "The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards," Scalia wrote. The graph below indicates current state stats:

Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion (in which Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas joined) which stated:

"As we have noted in prior cases, the evidence is unusually clear that the Eighth Amendment was not originally understood to prohibit capital punishment for 16- and 17-year-old offenders.

But the court having pronounced that the Eighth Amendment is an ever-changing reflection of "the evolving standards of decency" of our society, it makes no sense for the justices then to prescribe those standards rather than discern them from the practices of our people. On the evolving-standards hypothesis, the only legitimate function of this court is to identify a moral consensus of the American people. By what conceivable warrant can nine lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the nation? "

I totally agree with Justice Scalia ~ this unlawful decision presents a threat to us all.

I agree, too, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who wrote a dissenting opinion that included:

" Adolescents as a class are undoubtedly less mature, and therefore less culpable for their misconduct, than adults. But the court has adduced no evidence impeaching the seemingly reasonable conclusion reached by many state legislatures: that at least some 17-year-old murderers are sufficiently mature to deserve the death penalty in an appropriate case.

An especially depraved juvenile offender may nevertheless be just as culpable as many adult offenders considered bad enough to deserve the death penalty. Similarly, the fact that the availability of the death penalty may be less likely to deter a juvenile from committing a capital crime does not imply that this threat cannot effectively deter some 17-year-olds from such an act.

... Some juvenile murderers may be quite mature. Chronological age is not an unfailing measure of psychological development, and common experience suggests that many 17-year-olds are more mature than the average young "adult." "

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