Supreme Court strikes down death penalty for juveniles - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 03-01-2005, 05:47 PM

Supreme Court strikes down death penalty for juveniles
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that convicted murderers who were younger than 18 at the time of their crimes cannot be executed, in part because there is a "national consensus" among the states that such executions are wrong.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices said the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bans the execution of juvenile offenders. The decision, announced by Justice Anthony Kennedy during a dramatic court session that revealed the tension among the justices over the issue, invalidates laws in 20 states. It lifts the death sentences from about 71 juvenile offenders nationwide; they probably will get life in prison.

The decision comes three years after the court banned executions of mentally retarded inmates. The rulings reflect the prevailing view of today's court that capital punishment should be reserved for the nation's "worst offenders" and that the mentally retarded and juveniles cannot reliably be classified that way. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said juvenile criminals lack maturity and are particularly susceptible to peer pressure. "The age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood. It is ... the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest."

Tuesday's ruling also reverses a stand the court took in 1989, when it allowed executions of killers who committed their crimes at age 16 or 17. Kennedy noted that of the 38 states that have the death penalty, 18 exempt juvenile offenders from executions. When the court last ruled on the issue in 1989, 13 states had such exemptions. During the past decade, three states (Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia) have carried out the sentence for juvenile crimes.

The case decided Tuesday involved a Missouri man, Christopher Simmons, who was 17 when he abducted a woman from her home, bound and gagged her, and threw her into a river to drown.

Kennedy noted that "the stark reality is that the United States is the only country in the world" that officially allowed the juvenile death penalty.

Kennedy's opinion drew an angry response from Justice Antonin Scalia. "The basic premise — that American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world — ought to be rejected out of hand," Scalia said.

Officials in states that have juvenile offenders on death row said they were reviewing the opinion. Alabama Attorney General Troy King, whose office had urged the justices to retain the juvenile death penalty, said he was disappointed "on behalf of victims."

Kennedy, who usually votes with the court's five-member conservative wing, became the key vote in the case by siding with liberals John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Dissenting were Scalia, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas.

As a result, officials in Prince William County, Va., said Tuesday they will not prosecute a murder case there against teen sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, who is already serving life in prison in two of the 10 sniper killings that terrorized the Washington area in 2002. Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert had hoped to get the death penalty for Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the killings, but said another trial would now be an unnecessary expense.

The case is Roper vs Simmons, 03-633.

Contributing: The Associated Press

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...M_Exclude=Juno

Juveniles on death rows

The state breakdown of the 72 people on death rows who were juveniles when they committed their crimes, according to the Death Penalty Information Center:

Texas: 29.
Alabama: 14.
Mississippi: 5.
Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina: 4 each.
Florida, South Carolina: 3 each.
Georgia, Pennsylvania: 2 each.
Nevada, Virginia: 1.

Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Utah allow the execution of juveniles but do not have any on their death rows.

schsa · 03-02-2005, 03:47 PM

A twelve year old does not have the same mental capacity for making decisions as a 16 year old. It's hard to say what constitutes a cold blooded killer. I remember the movie The Bad Seed where the little girl was killing people and no one believed that she could be the one. But some children are just as capable as adults to commit murder.

Jolie Rouge · 03-02-2005, 04:20 PM

Most murders do not rate the death penalty - only the worst of the worst. In the cases where juveniles are involved they also look at extenuating circumstances...

Not familar with the "Bad Seed" case.... how old were the Menendez Brothers when they murdered their parents in order to inheirit ?

Jolie Rouge · 03-09-2005, 12:38 PM

Judicial Tyranny
Armstrong Williams

By a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for juvenile criminals as cruel and unusual punishment. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy stressed that inexperience should shield youths from the full extent of criminal punishment. "The age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood. It is, we conclude, the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest," Kennedy said

The court has long construed the 8th amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in light of "evolving standards of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." The Supreme Court had recognized in the 1950s that "evolving standards" ought to be determined by reference to international as well as domestic measures. And in this case, the majority stressed that eliminating the death penalty for juveniles is consistent with international opinion, and is supported by a majority of Americans.

A majority of Americans? Do you think a majority of Americans would have supported the death penalty for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, after they stalked through the halls of Columbine High murdering classmates?

What about for DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo? He was 17 years old when he participated in a shooting spree that left ten people dead.

Are these the whimsical acts of a minor? Or are they calculated acts of brutality deserving the full extension of criminal punishment? I think a majority of Americans would find it acceptable to punish these juveniles to the full extent of the law. I think they would do so because that's what these criminals deserve.

Somehow the Supreme Court missed this point. Somehow they failed to realize that making sure that criminals--even juveniles--get what they deserve is a moral imperative. Condemning people for acts they commit is part of having a morality that holds people responsible for their behavior.
When the legal system demands that a juvenile take responsibility for committing a capital crime, it is not the legal system that is showing a disregard for the sanctity of life. Rather, it is the criminal who showed disregard for the sanctity of his own life when he knowingly chose to commit a crime serious enough to warrant the death penalty.

I do not take the death penalty lightly. The decision to end a criminal's life is perhaps the most solemn decision that the state can make. This decision is never easy. I mention this merely to point out that it's for the people and their elected officials to decide when it is appropriate to extend full criminal punishment. This is not a decision that the constitution leaves to five old people in black dresses. The police power resides solely in the state government.

It is a fundamental violation of the separation of powers when five unelected, unaccountable judges use their own sense of morality to invalidate the laws of 19 states.

Justice Kennedy's assessment that executing juveniles violates "evolving standards of decency" has no basis in reality. The only measure of the people's will on this issue is the fact that society chose to enact legislature permitting the application of the death penalty to juveniles who commit heinous crimes. It is not the judge's job to engineer our culture. Their job is to uphold the law—not to invent it through grand moral sweeps.

CatrinaF25 · 03-15-2005, 10:10 PM

they can not vote. most cant drive. cant buy smokes or liquor cant fight in the war. there are reassons for this. I donot believe they should beable to do this to children and i am very glad of this ruleing

Jolie Rouge · 03-15-2005, 10:35 PM

Quote:

I do not believe they should be able to do this to children and I am very glad of this ruling

I would hardly describe Lee Malvo, Eric Harris, and Dylan Klebold as "children".

You don't think these individuals should be held accountable for randomly shooting innocent people, who planned and carried out the ultimate violence ... but people like YankeeMary think it is okay to slowly subject an innocent woman to a protracted death by dehydration and starvation because she is an inconvience to her own husband ?

Jolie Rouge · 03-16-2005, 04:26 PM

KILLING EX-KIDS
Tue Mar 8, 2005
By William F. Buckley Jr. [/i]

Oddly, people sometimes need to be reminded that capital punishment is a pretty gruesome act, and maybe it should be more gruesome. "What do you think of the Supreme Court decision outlawing capital punishment for those who committed murder when not yet 18?" The difficulty in answering that question with any enthusiasm is that to take a negative view of the Supreme Court's decision risks giving the impression that one enjoys hanging people whose crime was committed when very young.

But of course other analyses were sought by those who asked the question. They focused on two points especially. One was the strange invocation by the majority (Justice Kennedy) of practices on capital punishment by other nations. A decent respect for the opinion of mankind is different from subordination of one's own policies because they are different from those of others, even of mankind's. The Declaration of Independence promulgated the first self-governed state in the world since Athens; so we were early on encouraged to reach our own conclusions in matters of public policy.

The thinking underlying the democratic process has to do with consensus -- in this case, an American consensus. To introduce, for critical consideration, the judgment of non-Americans is to vitiate the sovereignty of American political judgments. These, by the way, alter on capital punishment in both directions, no doubt reflecting the public mood. In 1917, Missouri became the 13th state to abolish capital punishment; but seven of these states, soon after, reinstated the death sentence. Are we to suppose that if a few European countries do as much in the years ahead, the Supreme Court will reauthorize the execution of people who, as youths, committed murder?

The second dereliction of the court was of course removing the whole question of what is constitutional from the deliberation of the voters. The court overruled not only the 19 states that continued to authorize such punishment, but also its own decision in 1989, when it authorized the death penalty for minors.

The proposition can be argued that that which is cruel and unusual reflects public sentiment. In 1885, we have been reminded, James Arcene was hanged for murders he committed when he was 10 years old. One likes to believe that murders by 10-year-olds are unusual, but not for that reason designated as constitutionally unusual as regards the death sentence.

What the majority of the Supreme Court was up to (by the barest majority, 5-4) was social activism. The planted axiom in Roper v. Simmons was that American voters do not mature ethically as quickly as Supreme Court justices, and therefore judicial epiphanies need to be enunciated, late-born thoughts of the Framers.

A criticism of unusual character was made during the discussions of capital punishment. One critic, writing in a British paper, argued that the search for utterly painless punishment contradicted the purpose of punishment. One didn't gather from the essayist that he was arguing for the restoration of torture. But he argued with some plausibility that pain is a desirable feature of punishment.

There is, obviously, the psychological pain of confronting death, but the passage from life to death of a murderer does not reasonably impose a mission to devise the ultimate chloroform. We have not had a public execution in the United States since Rainey Bethea was hanged in Kentucky in 1936 for murdering an elderly woman. The endorsement of public executions has been pretty much abandoned, in the general search for the insulation from unpleasant activity, other than sexual depravity.

But there is no consensus, among penologists, on whether crime deterrence would be advanced by exposing the public to the act of execution. There are the abolitionists who argue in favor of televised executions on the grounds that such exposure would magnify the opposition to a bestial practice. That might be so, probably is so. But that does not mean that such executions wouldn't simultaneously augment deterrence.

Professor Ernest van den Haag, the late, learned advocate of capital punishment, rested his case on the single point, namely that punishment of that order affirms the full extent of the community's respect for life: take a life, forfeit yours.

When the British Parliament voted to outlaw the death sentence for murder in 1969, this was done athwart the absolutely resolute judgment of about 70 percent of the public, who, then and today, believe that murderers should hang. Well, maybe not hang, but be injected with a liquid which, however pleasant, would nevertheless be lethal. The British Parliament sometimes acts like the U.S. Supreme Court, but at least the Brits have a chance to vote for members of Parliament.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.../killingexkids

Jolie Rouge · 03-16-2005, 04:32 PM

Scalia Slams Juvenile Death Penalty Ruling
Mon Mar 14, 2005
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down the juvenile death penalty, calling it the latest example of politics on the court that has made judicial nominations an increasingly bitter process.

In a 35-minute speech Monday, Scalia said unelected judges have no place deciding issues such as abortion and the death penalty. The court's 5-4 ruling March 1 to outlaw the juvenile death penalty based on "evolving notions of decency" was simply a mask for the personal policy preferences of the five-member majority, he said. "If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again," Scalia told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. "You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility."

"Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers?" he said.

Scalia, who has been mentioned as a possible chief justice nominee should Chief Justice William Rehnquist retire, outlined his judicial philosophy of interpreting the Constitution according to its text, as understood at the time it was adopted.

Citing the example of abortion, he said unelected justices too often choose to read new rights into the Constitution, at the expense of the democratic process. "Abortion is off the democratic stage. Prohibiting it is unconstitutional, now and forever, coast to coast, until I guess we amend the Constitution," said Scalia, who was appointed to the court by President Reagan in 1986.

He blamed Chief Justice Earl Warren, who presided from 1953-69 over a court that assaulted racial segregation and expanded individual rights against arbitrary government searches, for the increased political role of the Supreme Court, citing Warren's political background. Warren was governor of California and the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1948. "You have a chief justice who was a governor, a policy-maker, who approached the law with that frame of mind. Once you have a leader with that mentality, it's hard not to follow," Scalia said, in response to a question from the audience.

Scalia said increased politics on the court will create a bitter nomination fight for the next Supreme Court appointee, since judges are now more concerned with promoting their personal policy preferences rather than interpreting the law. "If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us," he said, explaining that's why senators increasingly probe nominees for their personal views on positions such as abortion. "When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless," Scalia said.

Scalia, who has had a prickly relationship with the media, wasted no time in shooing away photographers from the public event five minutes into his speech. "Could we stop the cameras? I thought I announced ... a couple are fine at first, but click click click click," Scalia said, impatiently waving the photographers off.

During a speech last year in Hattiesburg, Miss., a deputy federal marshal demanded that an Associated Press reporter and another journalist erase recordings of the justice's remarks. The justice later apologized. The government conceded that the U.S. Marshals Service violated federal law in the confrontation and said the reporters and their employers were each entitled to $1,000 in damages and attorneys' fees.

___

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...2&u=/ap/scalia

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

YNKYH8R · 03-17-2005, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Scalia Slams Juvenile Death Penalty Ruling
Mon Mar 14, 2005
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

Citing the example of abortion, he said unelected justices too often choose to read new rights into the Constitution, at the expense of the democratic process. "Abortion is off the democratic stage. Prohibiting it is unconstitutional, now and forever, coast to coast, until I guess we amend the Constitution," said Scalia, who was appointed to the court by President Reagan in 1986.

This is an interesting comment...

CatrinaF25 · 03-17-2005, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

I would hardly describe Lee Malvo, Eric Harris, and Dylan Klebold as "children".

You don't think these individuals should be held accountable for randomly shooting innocent people, who planned and carried out the ultimate violence ... but people like YankeeMary think it is okay to slowly subject an innocent woman to a protracted death by dehydration and starvation because she is an inconvience to her own husband ?

hun thats not what i said. I just dont think they should be put to death . be punished ? YES 100% death no

YNKYH8R · 03-17-2005, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

I would hardly describe Lee Malvo, Eric Harris, and Dylan Klebold as "children".

You don't think these individuals should be held accountable for randomly shooting innocent people, who planned and carried out the ultimate violence ... but people like YankeeMary think it is okay to slowly subject an innocent woman to a protracted death by dehydration and starvation because she is an inconvience to her own husband ?

Wait a minute this is apples and oranges. Whether you call these underage individuals 'children' or not you have to give way to basic biology and hormones realizing that a juvinelle (sp) brain is still growing and doesn't think with the same reasoning. Look at columbine, all they wanted was to stop being picked on. Their solution was to kill. Which is completely irrational, just like a lot of childrens frame of mind. Where as Schaivo (whatever) is an adult that her husband claims never wanted to live like this. I know I wouldn't.