CNN: US SUPREME COURT: ALL DEATH PENALTY CASES WITH JUVENILE KILLERS THROWN OUT!

CNN on TV

[Next_Time_NJ]

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.

This report will be updated as details become available.

[shellshocked]

A child is a child and parents are supposed to be responsible for their child's actions.

I agree with this decision as it should be the parents on trial, which means parents have absolute authority over their children. Well, they are supposed to anyway.

[Semper Paratus]

I wonder if this is one of those cases were some of the Justices considered International Law in their decision?

[Centurion2000]

Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes

WHERE ?

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

...while being being "Bubba's new girlfriend"...

"Meet The Fockers, The Sequel" coming to a prison near you....

[JimRed]

Should'a killed 'em BEFORE the ruling!

[msp2004]

I wonder how many teens are currently on death row. I would make a very uneducated guess and say not that many, but the SUpreme court found the time to rule that this is cruel and unusual punishment.
Amazing that they will not even hear the cases of the nearly 4,000 unborn children sentenced to death every day.

[houeto]

If a 15 year old girl has sex with her 30 year old gym teacher, she's a child victim and the man is headed for jail,

If they get married first, no crime is committed. See the logic?

[Modernman]

17 years old have the same mental capacity of a 18 year old so dont give us that bleeding heart liberal crap!

Lower the age of majority to 17 or 16, then, for all purposes. You can't logically have it both ways- you can't treat a 16 year-old like an adult for some purposes but like a child for others.

When a 17 year old gang banger rapes and kills members of your family lets see how you will view their mental capacity.

Personal experiences like that are irrelevant when looking at Constitutional issues.

[Tree of Liberty]

How can you delineate between criminals who commit identical acts? Their victims are equally dead. Those responsible should receive equal punishment.

[newzjunkey]

The ends cannot ever be allowed to justify the means else you agree to tyranny and anarchy. Your kind of justification means we should just rip up the U.S. Constitution since its words have no meaning.

Kip Kinkle, 15, killed four people, including his own parents, and wounded 22 more.

According to 1997 juvenile crime statistics, 1700 juveniles were involved in 1400 murders that year. One hundred thirty of these murders were perpetrated by a female. Approximately eighty percent of juvenile murders involve the use of a firearm. Forty percent of these crimes involve two or more juvenile offenders. Fifty six percent of the victims in these crimes are acquaintances of the murderer and 34 percent are strangers. Source.

[HostileTerritory]

This Supreme Court ruling doesn't say anything else about existing laws for detaining criminals past age 18. In fact, given the 5-4 split on this decision, I'm pretty sure SCOTUS has turned down and will turn down in the future any appeal that seeks to "wipe the slate clean" for all underage criminals.

I sense a reductio ad absurdum that does not apply. This case is about the death penalty for underage crimes, full stop. Anything more would be its own case.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Here's one of your precious babies:

Made his 2 elderly neighbors (the wife was so frail she walked with a cane) kneel on their floor and then shot them execution style. Shot her in the side of the head and blew her teeth out all over her kitchen floor.

But hey, some say he was just a moody kid, so I guess we should cut him some slack. Was just 17, so obviously he must not have grasp the reality of death, yet somehow he was able to grasp how to make it more excrutiating and humiliating for his victims to go through an execution ritual. So I guess if one of those hooded terrorists in Iraq that executed those people on tape turns out to be under 18, we should give him a lighter sentence?

[johnb838]

I don't think it will be that direct, but it will continue to foster an attitude of "FU, You can't do sh!t to me, mutha-funka. I bust off a cap in yo @ss." It will also probably make the prison guards jobs harder... they already have to kiss their @sses. Its a wonder we have any guards left, not to mention police.

[Griptilian]

Death penalty is not a deterrent.

It's a punishment.
Hence; death penalty

[HostileTerritory]

How can you delineate between criminals who commit identical acts?

Premeditation, mental state, accidental vs. intentional. These are some of the factors that differentiate 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder, manslaughter.

[Griptilian]

Cruel and unusual punishment," the courts say.

Death penalty is not a cruel or unusual punishment.
People are put to death for the crime of murder.

[Erik Latranyi]

They keep grabbing executive, Congressional, and State powers and nobody has the wherewithal to do a damn thing about it.

That is why we need to start putting non-lawyer, citizens on the Supreme Court. This was done in the past in order to "balance" the bench. The arrogance of only judges knows no bounds.

[jwalsh07]

The decision is correct, the age chosen is wrong.

The decision is incorrect. It is extra constitutional and the justices have set themselves up as moral exemplars in direct contravention to the US COnstitution.

This is not about whether it is unusual punishement to execute minors of a certain age, it is about SCOTUS usurping powers that rightfully belong to the states. It is the people in those states who have the right, throught their elected officials, to decided what is moral and what isn't.

Judicial tyranny writ large and it keeps on coming.

[rcocean]

You're reading the layman's copy. The "secret revised" constitution is residing at the offices of the SCOTUS. Only SCOTUS justices have access.

Only discovered in 1948, (and now locked in John Paul Stevens office), the "secret revised" constitution includes:

1) The right to privacy - including sodomy.
2) The right to abortion
3) The definition of separation of church and state, including the ban on school prayer and all religious symbols in the public square.
4) Busing
5) The right to discriminate against people based on color (when white)
6) A whole bunch of over rights and constitutional amendments still to be disclosed to the populous by the men in black.

[M 91 u2 K]

So how come the 18 year old can vote, get an abortion, and have sex with whatever adult they choose and the 17 year old can't?

Well lets take this slowly.

17 years olds are still legally minors but cross the line when they act like adults and commit MURDER!

If you are 17 you can ask the court to recognize you as an adult if you wish to be independent of your parents, so many 17 years old can be recognized as adults.

Now if a 17 year old gangsta breaked into your home and raped and killed your family would you view them as a little child?