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.
In the court's majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy (news - web sites) agreed and declared the U.S. Constitution forbids the imposition of the death penalty against offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.There's that I word again..."It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime," he wrote in the 25-page opinion.
Your are wrong, If you read my previous posts.
10,000 people have been murdered by people who were convicted of murder and released since 1971!
And what is to stop prisoners from killing guards and rioting then?
What's to stop them from escaping, killing guards, etc. with the death penalty? They have already received the max. penalty, and it takes years to execute someone.
What you call pre-mediate is nothing more then going in your fathers closet and getting a gun and shooting someone. You thought about that prior to doing it.. and then did it.. Thats the yard stick we use to messure if a child is "grown up enough" to die? A 10 year old can do that.. doesnt make your grown up.
Oh, i don't ahve sympathy for any little murderer. I just don't think we should be putting to death under 18 year olds.
All I have to say is W better been DAMNED far better as selecting nominees than his father was seeing David Souter was a deciding vote her.
good point.
Off-topic, but when my parents were growing up in communist Yugoslavia during the 60's and 70's, the abortion laws were much more restrictive than what we have in the US today.
European countries today, even the extremely liberal ones, restrict abortions more than we do.
Why?
I stated it as an opinion.
But that doesn't chnage the FACT that this power resides at the state level.
Incorrect. The SCOTUS has the legitimate power to determine when a punishment is cruel and unusual.
But men legislate morality. It is what legislators do.
Some things they legislate concern morality, other things do not. In any case, they don't define morality, they make laws.
All law has a moral component and men and women are elected to legislate same.
Incorrect. But I will admit they make lots of immoral laws.
Not all men and women believ in God.
Correct.
Those officials are responsible to their citizenry and held responsible at the polling booth.
Which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with deciding what is moral.
If you like the idea that politicians define morality, you will love it when Hillary is back in charge.
Hitler was elected, he didn't get to define morality.
"Where does the Constitution grant them that authority?"
It doesn't.
But that is irrelevant.
We are not governed by the Constitution.
It is a piece of old paper.
We are governed by what thethe men in the branches of government think the Constitution says.
Individually, many of them may say that the Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds.
But that's all talk.
If they OBEY the Court, then by their obedience they establish that the Court has the authority to do as it does.
If your neighbor tells you to cut his grass for him, and you complain but you always do it, he is your boss because you have let him be your boss. The only way to demonstrate that he is NOT your boss is by telling him "No" when he demands that you cut his grass.
The President and the majority party in Congress grouse loud and long about the "abuses" of judicial power. If those judicial actions really are abuses, then they are not legal, and President and Congress need to ignore the abusive decisions and defy the abused authority.
But they never, ever, ever do. Not once in a century and a half.
Why?
Because the President who does will be impeached by Congress.
Or the Congress which does will be investigated by the Executive Branch and driven from power by the People.
At least that is the fear.
Which means that, even though the Constitution does not say that the Supreme Court has that power, it in fact DOES have that power.
Power is what power does.
The Supreme Court commands, and every President, Congress and State government since Lincoln has obeyed every order without defiance, not even once.
That means that the Supreme Court has precisely that power, regardless of what the Constitution says.
To give the mere piece of paper, the Constitution, authority, the other branches of government would have to defy Judicial power when in their own interpretations, such power is un-Constitutional.
But they don't.
And so the equality of covalent branches of government is like the sovereignty of the Queen of England: a nice constitutional myth.
The reality in England is that all power lies with the Prime Minister in the House of Commons.
And the reality in America is that Supreme Power reposes in the Supreme Court, and that no other branch of government has either the power or prestige to challenge it.
Clebold is dead.
Still you would want to give these monsters a second chance to kill and rape.
Sure it is. The particular method of punishment is execution, and who can and cannot be executed.
Sorry, but you don't know what you are talking about. Most European countries have more restrictive laws than the US vis a vis abortion. Not conjecture, fact.
Justice Kennedy again....ugh.
I agree - Under 18 is a child.
Do you know there is no Miranda rights for a child. There are alot of ways in Society that children are treated differently. That is because we RECOGNIZE that they ARE children regardless of the heineousness of their crimes.
Just because an adult can manipulate them (hire them as some on this tread say) to kill, it would not make us a better society to stop the recognition of a child even though he is 17 and 364 days.
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