Posted on 03/01/2005 7:21:16 AM PST by 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.
The fact that the adult doing the hiring can be given the death penalty.
Yes. If someone has committed a crime that is worthy of death it is because they are too dangerous to be allowed out into society ever again and death is the only means we have to assure that.
You are putting other people at risk. That is not acceptable.
Your cute little snuggle bunny killers did not just happen to kill someone by accident. They either killed multiple victims or they killed in hideous ways.
Why don't you leave it up to circumstances and a jury?
When was this done? I'm curious. Name one a Justice who wasn't a trained lawyer.
Why do we even bother to prosecute and imprison criminals? The courts will just find a way, years later, to reduce their penalties.
How long before some judge figures that life in prison is also "unconstitutionally cruel".
Good for them. I just can't believe there were four people in support of killing children.
You're either pro-life, or you're not.
If a 15 year old boy really, really loved his male teacher like an adult, and they had sex, would you view him as an adult?
Totally false. Children under the age of majority have almost, but not quite, all the rights of an adult. It is written into the Constitution and thus you certainly can have it both ways and it is the states who decide which ways.
So, someone whose 17 goes out and murders someone, their parent should be the ones to get the death pentalty/take responsibility?
Parents cannot control everything that their children do no matter how much they might try.
I can't agree with that. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris deserved to die, but fortunately took matters into their own hands.
I disagree with putting people to death who honestly had no grasp of the gravity of their actions, but that bar is so variable, making age 18 an ironclad litmus test is hardly more fair than taking every instance on a case-by-case basis.
I'm not justifying the means. I'm saying I like the ends. I'm saying I got the result I wanted through a constitutionally fraudulent process. The result is still what I wanted but the processess is still constitutionally fraudulent.
We put murderers in jail ALL THE TIME. Very few of them get the death penalty. Do you think all of them should get the death penalty? Why do you suppose that hasn't happened?
So, during the night before her 18th birthday, she's given the sound mind of an adult and can then go seek to abort her baby? I'm missing something from your post.
Some states had the death penalty for 16 years olds and rightly so.
There is NO valid consitutional basis for this decision.
No matter what you think about the death penalty, there is nothing in the Constitution which forbids execution of teenage thugs who murder.
Justice Kennedy is way off the beam when he cites trends in state practice to justify his decision. That has nothing to do with what the Constitution says. The law is not trends: it is what the law-makers intended. History shows that a decision like this was never in the minds of the framers of the Contitution.
These five justices are complete legal idiots. If a mentally retarded person is not responsible for his crimes, surely judges who are as dumb as the majority in this case cannot be left in a place of responsibility on the Supreme Court.
The issue of the Supreme Court and judicial review is probably the most important in the country. It is what brought us widespread abortion. It will bring us more crimes and lawlessness. Therefore, it is the one fight which we must win. All other political quarrels are as nothing next to this one.
We are in a bad way, because much of the legal establishment enjoys the sort of lawlessness which the Supreme Court majority practiced today. They have various theories which justify it, but all such theories are bogus, and miss the point. It is characteristic of the legalistic mind, prejudiced by ideology and befuddled by masses of detail, to miss the main point of things. One might describe their state as "induced insanity." There is probably nothing organically amiss with the brain of one of those five in today's majority, but they are acting crazy.
Perfectly intelligent people can act like idiots: that is the definition of a fool. It is probably the word we should use for Judge Kennedy those who joined him in this inexcusable decision.
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