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Many of you may have already heard about this last week, but what are your thoughts...should we be executing minors

Lengthy but worth the read:

5-4 Supreme Court Abolishes Juvenile Executions

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 2, 2005; Page A01

The Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for juvenile offenders yesterday, ruling 5 to 4 that it is unconstitutional to sentence anyone to death for a crime he or she committed while younger than 18.

In concluding that the death penalty for minors is cruel and unusual punishment, the court cited a "national consensus" against the practice, along with medical and social-science evidence that teenagers are too immature to be held accountable for their crimes to the same extent as adults.

The court said its judgment, which overturned a 1989 ruling that had upheld the death penalty for 16- and 17-year-old offenders, was also influenced by a desire to end the United States' international isolation on the issue.

As of yesterday, 20 states, including Virginia, permitted the death penalty for offenders younger than 18. That is five fewer than allowed the practice in 1989.

"From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the opinion for the court.

"Our determination," Kennedy added, "finds confirmation in the stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty."

The ruling was the second time in three years the court had carved out a new categorical exception to the death penalty, having banned capital punishment for the moderately mentally retarded in 2002.

It came after 59 people were executed in 2004, the fewest since the Supreme Court permitted states to resume the death penalty in 1976. That decline is the result in part of lower murder rates and in part of events such as the exoneration of some death row inmates by DNA evidence.

Thus, the ruling showed that society's reconsideration of capital punishment has penetrated the court, with the four liberal justices who joined Kennedy yesterday -- John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- pushing hardest to change capital punishment with the occasional help of either Kennedy or his fellow moderate conservative on the court, Sandra Day O'Connor.

O'Connor, who voted with the four death penalty skeptics and Kennedy in the 2002 case, dissented yesterday, along with the court's conservatives, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

By striking down yesterday the death sentence a Missouri jury had imposed on Christopher Simmons -- who was 17 on Sept. 8, 1993, when he broke into Shirley Crook's house, kidnapped her and threw her, bound and gagged, into a river -- the court also canceled the death sentences of 72 others for crimes they committed while younger than age 18.

One of those inmates, Shermaine A. Johnson, 26, had been awaiting execution in Virginia for a rape and murder he committed in 1994 at age 16. Virginia set a minimum death-penalty eligibility age at 16, but that is now unconstitutional. Maryland bars the death penalty for those younger than 18; there is no death penalty in the District.

By far the largest impact of yesterday's ruling will be felt in Texas, where there are 29 juvenile offenders awaiting execution, and Alabama, where there are 14. No other state has more than five.

There have been 22 executions of juveniles since 1976, 13 of them in Texas.

Kennedy's opinion rested in large part on the fact that 30 states, including the 12 states that have no capital punishment, forbid the death penalty for offenders younger than 18. That number represented an increase of five since the court upheld the juvenile death penalty in 1989.

The court weighs death penalty laws according to what a 1958 ruling called the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," and looks to state legislation and jury verdicts to decide whether a "national consensus" has developed against a previously accepted practice.

In 2002, the court voted 6 to 3 to strike down the death penalty for the moderately mentally retarded, which it had upheld 5 to 4 in 1989. In the 2002 case, Atkins v. Virginia, the court noted that the number of death penalty states banning that practice had grown from two in 1989 to 13 in 2002, while none had gone the other way.

The recent shift of states against the juvenile death penalty, though less dramatic than the evidence the court found sufficient in the mental-retardation case, was enough to carry the day, Kennedy concluded.

For the Supreme Court itself, perhaps the most significant effect of yesterday's decision is to reaffirm the role of international law in constitutional interpretation.

The European Union, human right lawyers from the United Kingdom and a group of Nobel Peace laureates had urged the court in friend-of-the-court briefs to strike down the juvenile death penalty.

In saying that this strong expression of international sentiment "provide[s] respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions," Kennedy lengthened the recent string of decisions in which the court has incorporated foreign views -- and decisively rejected the arguments of those on the court, led by Scalia, who say it should consider U.S. law exclusively.

There were actually six votes in Kennedy's favor on that point yesterday, because in her dissenting opinion O'Connor agreed with Kennedy that international trends affect the meaning of "cruel and unusual punishment" in modern times.

O'Connor's opinion suggested she came fairly close to joining the majority entirely. If she were a legislator, O'Connor wrote, "I, too, would be inclined to support legislation setting a minimum age of 18 in this context."

But, O'Connor wrote, too few states had recently enacted such laws to convince her that the country generally had "set its face" against the juvenile death penalty.

Scalia, in a separate dissent joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, took the majority to task for "proclaim[ing] itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards -- and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purport[ing] to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures."

Noting that most countries have more restrictive abortion laws than the United States, Scalia accused the court of "invok[ing] alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignor[ing] it otherwise." He read his opinion from the bench, a sign of strong disapproval for the court's decision.

Scalia also pointed out that the 18 death-penalty states that limit capital punishment to offenders 18 and older amount to 47 percent of the 38 death-penalty states.

"Words have no meaning if the views of less than 50 percent of death penalty States can constitute a national consensus," he wrote.

For Kennedy, yesterday's opinion appeared to represent a distance traveled since the 1989 case, in which he voted with Scalia to uphold the juvenile death penalty.

As recently as April 2003, the court -- with Kennedy's support -- granted Oklahoma's request to reinstate the death sentence of a 17-year-old offender after a federal appeals court had blocked it.

In 2002, the court refused to hear two appeals from younger-than-18 offenders asking it to reconsider their cases in light of Atkins. Again, Kennedy was in the majority.

Even at the Oct. 12 oral argument in the case decided yesterday, Kennedy said he was "very concerned" that gangs might use juveniles as "hit men" if there were no death penalty.

But yesterday's packet of opinions contained a brief writing by Stevens, co-signed by Ginsburg, that patted Kennedy on the back for coming around to their point of view.

If the "great lawyers" of the early republic were on the court today, Stevens wrote, "I would expect them to join Justice Kennedy's opinion for the court."

__ State-By-State Breakdown __

Breakdown of the 72 people on death rows who were juveniles when they committed their crimes:
• Texas: 29
• Alabama: 14
• Mississippi: 5
• Ariz., La., N.C.: 4 each
• Fla., S.C.: 3 each
• Ga., Pa.: 2 each
• Nev., Va.: 1

Source: The Associated Press

I think determination of death penalty for minors should be done on a case by case basis. Nonethe less i have great respect for Justice Kennedy and Ginsberg..

Thing is, it's the constitutionality of juvenile death sentences that is in question...constitutionality cannot be on a case by case basis, but must be the benchmark for all similar decisions, so even though the crime in question is particularly troubling and downright heinous...the overall issue is what's at stake, executing kids.



I think Kennedy is the true hero here...nothing against Ruth, but along with Souter and Breyer (Stephens to a lesser extent), you can always count on them aligning themselves along the liberal sideline. Kennedy's position represents a stark reversal of his Stanford vs. Kentucky vote in 1989 when he joined Scalia in upholding the Juvenile Death Penalty.

Significantly...the highest profile death row inmate to benefit from this ruling (even though it wasn't mentioned in the article) is Lee Boyd Malvo, the teenage sniper.

but I dont think they should be put to death
There are alot of youths that have a lot to learn
and wont realize their actions till it is to late.
So im againts it

a law can certainly pass constitutional muster an be applied on a case by case basis. The death penality for adults is applied differently by different states and its still passes the "cruel and unsual" punishment test. We can write a book on the arguments for and against the death penalty to be applied for juveniles. Now should their be an age limit.. yes, where, i don't know, but certainly i think most , 16, 17, 18 year olds who are committing horrible crimes these days understand the nature of their behaviour, right from wrong and have formed the requiste malice in their minds to commit their crime.

Which is why it's a good decision by the court to overrule their previous stance.

I do believe that there is the understanding that what they're doing is wrong, just as we may know at 16-17, that drinking beer and getting behind the wheel, or having unprotected sex, or cutting classes is wrong. In no way am I trying to equate these indiscretions with committing First degree murder, but the juvenile mind is not one that (in my mind) gives weighted consideration to issues of morality and consequences...certain the majority of juveniles can't give such on a socially acceptable level...again the reason for denying them the franchise among other things.

While I am all for death penalty...I guess I can see why they feel it is a bit unfair if the juvenile is say 15 & commits murder. I still think they are getting off easy by getting a life sentence in jail. I wish this country had caning/flogging. If the person was 17 & commited a bound/gag/rape & murder, then by all means they should get a death sentence. If it were up to me...I would still lean more towards allowing the execution of inmates over life. Either way they are a nuisance to society & giving them a long prison sentence doesn't mean rehabilitation.

what the hell is the difference between a 15 year old and a 17 year old. I think people should also look at moral culpability and it's effect on this issue. jesus i cant pic a 9 year old bein given the death penalty, what is mankind comin to. though im against the death penalty period, because of my moral and religious beliefs. I dont think it solves anything. I think there is totally a difference between a child and an adult. I believe that with children, there are many other alternatives to slove these issues and giving them the death penalty is not one. Sad thing is that this country supposedly believes in demorcracy, but is the only country that still condones this.

thats the thing with me to
i dont think I would be able to ( if I was on a jury) Put someone to death
Then again who has the last say on the death
I know the jury finds guilty or not guilty but its the judge who gives the sentence right?

Hmm I with you on this one to a certain extent but I wonder about this part (in bold). I think young adults (thats what they are) have no issues in the morality aspect. They know what is right from what is wrong, but I am more llikely to agree that they have difficulty weighing the consequences of those actions. My question is where do the victims of crime fit into all these rulings?

what about according to the laws of the land. There are no such thing as young adults. It is either adult or juvenile.
They have to mature to the point where they realize and understand that their actions will be damaging to others.
To an extent they know this but they do not grasp this until later on in life.

Bakes Question.. using the same statement:

True, but it's a medically proven fact that human beings are still developing (thus not fully developed mentally) at that age.

No mentally ill patients should be put to death?

DO you really believe they don't KNOW this or is the point that they just don't care?

the thing is when you are socialized in a society that most likely you gonna die b4 you reach 30.. well depressing to say the least... u wanna die like a superstar everyone take notice not like a fly that hits someones car and is just wiped out from the glass never to be spoken about again