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.
You are entitled to be incorrect as well. Your contention is that the SCOTUS does not have the legitimate power to define cruel and unusual punishment as laid out in the Constitution?
AND YOUR "SIMPLE TRUTHS" ARE YOU OPINIONS, NOT TRUTH.
If not, it should be quite simple for you to name a few that don't.
It's a law that I must sink my fence posts on my own property 48 inches deep, what is the moral componant of that?
You're not offering an argument, you are simply making claims that are not true. Sound familar?
No, they can't. Judges are now limited to sentencing based on facts found by the jury.
Take a look at: High Court Overturns Sentencing Guidelines
The high court found that the mandatory sentencing guidelines system violated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial because it required judges to base part of their sentencing decisions on additional facts, such as previous criminal history or using a weapon, which a jury did not specifically find to be true.
So, if a jury convicts someone of drug-dealing and finds two aggravating circumstances, that criminal will still get the statutory minimum for the crime plus any "bump-up" due to the two aggravating circumstances.
This decision has not created a free-for-all where judges can give a one-year sentence for murder.
No doubt. Liberal SC justices who cannot understand cause and effect and that hate America are legislating from the bench, eroding our rights, and destroying our country.
Makes sense to me. (/sarc.)
HA! Sounds like a liberal's arguement.
Judge-made determinations of age of consent tend to be limited to specific cases that turn on the peculiar facts of the case, as where a judge determines that 16 year-old child is emancipated from his or her parents. But even there a state legislature can sharply circumscribe or even deny a judge the power to make the determination and even limit how far the consent may be legally acknowledged.
What has happened here is something else entirely. Five life-tenured liberal members of the Supreme Court, without any of the citizen participatory debate and input found at a state legislative level, have decided after looking at some dubious pieces of international law commentary cherry-picked from their favorite elitist legal authors, they are wiser than any state legislature and that their wisdom must be forced upon the benighted proles at the state level. This isn't about debating difficult issues in a republic. This is about a tiny group of unelected elitist liberals shutting down all debate in a republic.
On this thread alone, there has been more extended and earnest debate by dozens more citizens on both sides of the issue than there was at the Supreme Court. To what end? As important as this issue is, as much fervent debate as it has generated at FR, all further discussion is pointless because a more five members of the Supreme Court have taken the debate off the table.
I think that's sad.
You must really hate "manslaughter" laws, then. After all, isn't someone killed accidentally just as dead as someone who's murdered?
You cant have it both ways..
Don't statistics tend to show that the death penalty doesn't actually deter crime? I thought it was more for the families of victims.
That's ridiculous. We have a jury system to take that into account. The under-18 killers were found guilty and sentenced to death because they deserved it. Plenty weren't sentenced to death.
If you're old enough to committ and be convicted of a capital crime, you are old enough to face the consequences of that crime.
You'll get no argument from me. Our prisons should not be cruel, but that does not mean they need to be anywhere near as pleasant as they are now. Any sort of amenities, such as TV's and recreational sports, should only be provided as a reward for convicts who fulfill certain requirements.
All able-bodied convicts should be required to put in a full work-day performing hard labor.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Attica prison riots were a response to bad conditions and things were made better for the safety of the people who have to work with convicts.
Still leaves possibilty of many liberal judges going easier on criminals.
Nope! Different argument.
We're talking intent, not accident.
Harris and Klebold weren't committing accidental manslaughter there at Columbine.
So I can be executed by a 16 or 17 year old who decides to hold up a 7-11 while I happen to be there buying cough medicine, doughnuts or a Lotto ticket, but HE can't be executed for the crime?
OK... That's stupid.
We have judges and juries and state legislatures to handle that.
So am I.
Real statistic is how 10,000 people have been killed by convicted criminals who were released.
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