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.
And Lincoln stood up to the Court routinely.
Lincoln is an even better model, because he's a hero to everyone.
If Jefferson had stood up to Marshall in 1803, we wouldn't have this mess.
Hell, we probably wouldn't have been a Civil War, because there would have been no Dred Scott decision by which the Supreme Court could, singlehandedly, overrule 50 years of careful compromise politics on slavery.
And come to think of it, there would not have been racial segregation either after the Civil War, because there would have been so Supreme Court to overrule the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1873 and the three post-Civil War Amendments by allowing segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson.
Oh well.
It didn't happen like that then.
Anyone want to take odds that it will happen now?
the core of the problem is lifetime appointment - there simply isn't enough turn over on the bench. lifetime appointments must end, one 15 year term and that's enough.
I still don't understand why people like you want the state to have the power over life and death. The government can't manage to get my tax return to me, how can they be trusted to kill someone?
I think this ruling might be injurious to states' rights, but how can giving the government less power be bad? The government is corrupt and stupid, and I want to live with as little of it as possible.
"OK, I found it in the Constitution. It says "17 years and 364 days old, ye cannot execute a Person. However, add a day and that that makes it not so cruel and unusual.""
Would you please post where in the Constitution this if found?
I didn't actually take a position on the death penalty at all. I merely commented on the problem of judicial abuse of power and how to counter it.
Personally, I am an obedient Catholic. The Pope tells me that the death penalty is not justified in the modern world, and I somewhat dourly accept that. Certainly I worry about the execution of the innocent.
Anyway, as to not "wanting" the state to have the power of life and death, it is nature of any vast and powerful organzation that has armed forces that it has the power of life and death. That is simply a given. For the police to be effective against the violent, they have to be armed, and that means sometimes that the police will execute someone on the spot, without trial, if that person is a violent menace to society.
That is the power of life and death. And police forces are indispensible for my safety.
Likewise, in a world full of bad, armed men, armies are indispensible for my safety. Once again, that's the state empowered with life and death, including the power to compel people to bear arms and possibly die in times of great danger.
There isn't any way around the power of life and death so long as there is power, and that is a given of nature.
All that remains to us is deciding who will wield that power, and what limits we want placed on it.
Personally, I think we ought to limit ourselves to not routinely executing killers, even though they richly deserve it, because we murder the innocent that way too. That is avoidable, and since we have the power to avoid it, I agree with my Pope that we should.
That said, what I was writing about was judicial overreach.
The danger with judicial overreach is that it is extreme power without check.
That needs to change, even if I am not uncomfortable with the PARTICULAR result.
Maybe the kid won't be executed but you will.
"If citing international law as a justification for a decision isn't enough to get a SCOTUS justice impeached, then what exactly would be enough?"
Whatever 2/3rds of the Senators say is enough.
Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one.
It was sarcasm....LOL....
The problem with all or nothing rulings like this takes the individual case and discretion away from judges, juries, communities, and states.
A seventeen year old who murders deserves to die in MANY circumstances. Now they won't in any. That gives a license to kill to teenagers. It's no different than when the Supremes abolished the death penalty in 1972, and the rest of the decade became one of the most lawless periods in the nation's history.
I doubt many of us would want an eleven year old to face the death penalty. But there aren't a lot of eleven year old murderers either.
And by the way, what is the age of the perp the Supremes have spared? What did he do? Why don't we argue the merits of the EXACT case, rather than this theoretical crap?
And for those of you defending these teenaged monsters, I'll say the same thing I say to liberals. You'll only defend them until they butcher one of YOUR relatives.
Send in the clowns. There ought to be clowns.
"Whatever 2/3rds of the Senators say is enough."
"Yep, and if citing international law is not enough to get 2/3rds of the Senators to move than what would be?"
ASk them.
Ask Frist why he refuses to use the Nuclear Option to get the President's slate of conservative judges on the appellate courts.
What age is to young?
Whatever age the State Legislature sets.
I don't think its a matter of age so much as mentality anyway. Young teenagers (13 and 14) certainly understand the concept of murder and right and wrong.
Then you aren't aware of the horror that these killers/rapists/torturers subject their victims to. Cruel and unusual punishment? Yes, on their INNOCENT VICTIMS.
¿Piensas que lo haría? Si fuera a hacerlo, no escribiré nada aquí. No sabes con quien tratas. No me amaneces ni escribas algo indicando que me vas a amanecer….nunca. No te tengo miedo. No me importa quien eres. Tengo el derecho de escribir una opinión, y tienes el derecho de callarte y ignorarla. Or, succinctly, back off. Some of us here will post with a bit of sarcasm when we please to do so unless Jim decides we can't. To me death would be a literal favor. So, scare me with something else.
Registered Feb. 22, 2005. Where have you been for several years?
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