In the court's majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy 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.
"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.
Meaning the gutless coward succumbed to PEER PRESSURE.
CAPITAL CASE OBSERVATIONS [Jonathan H. Adler]
A young Federalist who has already perused Justice Kennedy's opinion in the death penalty case e-mails with two observations. First, the Court cites two unratified treaties in reaching its decision, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Criminal Court Convention. Any citation to the latter as authority is quite outrageous. Not only has the U.S. not ratified the treaty, but the U.S. is not even a party; President Bush withdrew from the treaty in his first term. (Yes, Shannon, Kennedy's opinion may be even worse than you think.) I'll have to give these portions of the opinion a close look. Second, somewhat unexpectedly the Chief Justice joined the dissent even though his vote was not necessary to break a tie. Also, here are the dissents by O'Connor and Scalia.
America has more liberal laws regarding abortion than all but 6 countires in the world. Of course the court has NEVER cited that in an opinion because it doesn't accrue with their view that killing them on the way out is perfectly OK. The court, and Justice Kennedy, in particular are hypocrites of the worst kind.
""It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion"
Early in the original issue they said it was decided based on OUR CONSTITUTION???????
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.
>>"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.<<<
son of a....
UNBELIVEABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He ought to be impeached for that.
Ummmm .... what does international opinion have to due with OUR constitution?