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.
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.
........hmmmmm and yet to pull the plug and MURDER Terri Shiavo, is humane!!! We are a messed up society!!!
I don't agree with the decision, in that I don't believe that executing people who murdered at age 16 or 17 is cruel and unusual punishment. However, it don't feel like there are any umbras or penumbras in the decision, either.
I simply disagree with the application of the term, "Cruel and unusual."
Thank goodness for our ENLIGHTENED British and French friends.
Boy, that Supreme Court of ours is just so gosh-darn conservative (eyeballs rolling way up to the ceiling).
Very sad.
Hard to see where this is in the Constitution.
Liberals continue to be soft-on-crime, and the community that overwhelmingly suffers is the community of victims of crime. The social pathology of murder -- it's sorrow and its consequences -- hits particularly hard in the black community. Of course, white liberals don't even grasp that blacks are very concerned about adequate police enforcement and the safety of this community.
God works in mysterious ways. Maybe this ruling will persuade more African-Americans that it's the Republican party that has their best interests at heart.
I wonder what would happen if the Governors in all the states, that have young killers on death row, were to grant pardons to all of them and issue them a directory of the Supreme Court Justices who wrote this new law, including their home addresses and phone numbers?
I can kill somebody and not be held accountable for my actions.
Bad decision. Very bad. This is not something the Constitution spells out clearly, so these judicial potentates simply decided to do make it up themselves instead of leaving it up to the people through their duly elected representatives.
This is full-throated "judicial activism" on lavish display. Where is this "conservative" Court we hear so much whining about nowadays?
All I can say is, holy crap and what the hell were they thinking?????
bump
Well so it's against the law to teach them one of the 10 commandents thou shalt not kill, so why should it be against the law if they do kill you.
who's constitution are they referring to?
Just a few weeks ago, I watched the following trial on COURT TV:
From CNN:
"Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Posted: 4:23 AM EST (0923 GMT)
"CHARLESTON, South Carolina (CNN) -- A judge sentenced a 15-year-old boy Tuesday to 30 years in prison for killing his grandparents after jurors rejected defense arguments that taking the antidepressant Zoloft drove the youth to kill.
The jury convicted Chris Pittman earlier Tuesday on two counts of murder in the 2001 slayings of his paternal grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman.
In closing arguments Monday, prosecutor John Meadors belittled the defense's contention that Zoloft influenced Pittman, then 12, to carry out the shootings, calling such an argument a "smoke screen."
"The only issue is -- did he know the difference between right and wrong?" Meadors said.
"Shooting them in bed with a [.410-gauge shotgun]," he said, "that's malice, meanness, wickedness."
In his closing argument, defense attorney Paul Waldner told jurors, "In this state, in this country, we do not convict children of murder when they've been ambushed by chemicals that have destroyed their ability to reason."
((And whether he'd been sentenced to death, or this 30 year sentence, he'll spend the rest of his life in jail appealing the verdict.))
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.
Hey, kids, no need to spare your victims out of fear of the death penalty. Go ahead and kill 'em. Fewer loose ends and all that.
Yet again a debatable interpretation of the Constitution becomes law ... and the plainly-worded 2nd Amendment continues to be ignored. Clarity is in the goals of the beholder.
Wow
Bet teenage gangs are glad to hear this.