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.

[JohnnyZ]

"Age of consent" is shorthand for the legal distinction between being a minor and being an adult in the eyes of the law.

No, "minor" is shorthand for being a minor. Age of consent relates to sexual activity, and is below 18 in many states.

And your ridiculous assertion that a 17-year-old can't legally be held to the same standard as an 18-year-old is pure fabrication.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

When's the last time they executed a child? Anyone ever seen that in their lifetime? I haven't.

[tomahawk]

US Supreme Court is uber alles.

5 "Justices" are the law. They makes the law.

We are a banana republic.

Impeach the 5 Injustices now!

They are tyrants.

[hocndoc]

Meek, thanks for the ping.
Protagoras, no the Supreme Court has *usurped* the "right" to overrule our duly elected representatives.

The founding fathers did not write the Constitution intending that the Judiciary should decide all important issues leaving the trivial to the Legislature. There is still a 10th Amendment.

The States, perhaps, should have very tight and specific legislation on when a minor is at risk of the death penalty. As with so many of the laws overturned by the SS in the last hundred years, the States should have moved to adjust to current sentiments. However, the right to determine punishment for crimes under State laws should be in the right of the State.

This is one more case of Judicial highhandedness by a bunch of non-elected and unfortunately far too political and ideological activists. They are not interpreting the Constitution, they are writing law.

[Let's Roll]

Rush said Kennedy did and I think he even said he referred to a couple of unratified treaties.

Amazing - the SCOTUS has become the object of sneering contempt in one generation. This is how scofflaws are created.

[HostileTerritory]

your ridiculous assertion that a 17-year-old can't legally be held to the same standard as an 18-year-old is pure fabrication.

My "ridiculous assertion" is that the law nearly always draws a line dividing people into adults and minors, and in most cases that line is 18 and that's exactly where people like it. The Supreme Court recognized that. I was trying to help out the people who are shocked, SHOCKED, that the law might not treat all young people the same if their ages vary slightly, while it happens all the time.

[BellStar]

This country is in DEEP D@@ D@@ is more like it!

[BlessedBeGod]

I'm sorry, I can't seem to find that in my copy of the Constitution. Maybe it's defective. *rolls eyes*

[William Terrell]

All you have to do is explain to me how fear of losing his life might have deterred Klebold from carrying out his murder spree.

There is not need to explain how the death penalty would have deterred Klebold. The death penalty is not for the purposes of a deterrent. It is for the purpose of removing deadly dangers to the people of a state.

The rationale, pretty ancient I might add, is concurrent and the same as the right to use deadly force to protect yourself from clear and present human dangers to you and your family.

Since the state is the people of the state, it acquires either exclusive or concurrents right that people have. Very old doctrine.

The Supremem Court is dead wrong, as they have been being dead wrong almost sequentially these days. An under 18 functioning sociopath is as deadly a danger to the people of a state as an over 18 functioning sociopath.

You have to remember that rarely, in the stack of criminal cases, is the death penalty sought and as often imposed. Klebold would have and should have recieved the death penalty.

There are certain twists of human character that a few years in jail, at terrific expense to those same people the state is trying to protect, will not cure.

[Cold Heat]

When's the last time they executed a child? Anyone ever seen that in their lifetime? I haven't.

You never will.

By the time they come up for execution, they are well into adulthood.

This addresses when the crime was committed. Not when they execute.

The knee jerk reactions to youth crimes, and gang bangers caused states to affirm the death penalty for crimes committed when they were juveniles.

The SCOTUS has repaired this.

That is all....moving along now.

[EternalVigilance]

Yes. When foolish law is made, respect for the law is destroyed.

They are creating a lawless society.

[LongViewSC]

Why do we as a society make it so hard to take out the trash?

[Torie]

Well in this case Scalia is wrong. I think that "cruel and unusual punishment" can only be viewed through the lens of current societal morays. I suspect that was the intent of the drafters. As Justice Stevens put it:

"If the meaning of that Amendment had been frozen when it was originally drafted, it would impose no impediment to the execution of 7-year-old children today. See Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, 368 (1989) (describing the common law at the time of the Amendment’s adoption). The evolving standards of decency that have driven our construction of this critically important part of the Bill of Rights foreclose any such reading of the Amendment. In the best tradition of the common law, the pace of that evolution is a matter for continuing debate; but that our understanding of the Constitution does change from time to time has been settled since John Marshall breathed life into its text. If great lawyers of his day—Alexander Hamilton, for example—were sitting with us today, I would expect them to join JUSTICE KENNEDY’s opinion for the Court. In all events, I do so without hesitation."

Of course, there is no widely held national consensus that executing 16 and 17 year olds is cruel and unusual, and thus I dissent from the Court's holding. It once again abused its power. Shocking.

[jwalsh07]

Blah, Blah when you have no answer? LOL

My standard reply when the level of discourse deteriorates to "Who's afraid of the big bad Hillary wolf" and Nazis.

You need to bring a better argument to get more than that standar reply.

[Protagoras]

So under your theory, who decides what is cruel and unusual punishment under the constituition?

[Vicomte13]

Impeach them, and there will be 9 more.

The problem is not the Justices.
The problem is the structure of the system itself.
The Supreme Court has been allowed to assert that it is the final arbiter in America and has not had its authority challenged in 160 years.
Any supreme political authority is going to be vilified by people who don't like it's decisions.
If it wasn't the Court, it would be Congress and the President.

Of course, we elect Congress and the President, not the Court.

Anyway, if we don't like what the Supreme Court is doing, the answer lies in a rethink of the structure of the government and reallocation of institutional power, not in replacing officials. The current Supremes are not particularly radical or wild-eyed. The problem lies mainly in the power allowed to the Judiciary, not the judges.

[Mo1]

Seems Kennedy has forgotten how America and OUR Constitution came to be???

[Cold Heat]

It is for the purpose of removing deadly dangers to the people of a state.

Prison does that.

The death penalty is revenge, plain and simple revenge.

Not deterrence, and not societies way of cleaning house, although this can be argued as a secondary effect, it is not the real purpose.

It is payback.

[longtermmemmory]

Translation: Under 18 gang banger deaths will shoot way up.

[Squantos]

Exactly....MS-13 just got a free pass.