The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
A small step toward civilization in America
: The Supreme Court outlawed executing minors… at last. Says Kevin Keith at LeanLeft says:
This is a great relief, shamefully overdue. The Times notes that all the countries that until recently executed juveniles have since outlawed the practice, leaving the US the last remaining country in the world to practice this barbarism – behind Iran, China, Pakistan and other garden spots. (Interestingly, with Iran
I oppose the death penalty mainly because of the problem of wrongful convictions.
But I fail to understand how people can be so ecstatic about this decision. Come on, barbarians if you execute someone who murders at 17 but not at 18? And if you believe that all execution is barbarism, then your first quote is inappropriate.
Do you not think that people can do things at 16 or 17 that merit the ultimate punishment (whatever that may be)? It’s only recently that we’ve extended childhood through age 18, as we well know.
The Supreme Court’s decision is absurd. The Court holds that somehow the Constitution has magigally changed in the space of fourteen years, without benefit of any constitutional amendment.
The Court has held that a minor child is mature enough to kill her unborn child but that a perp who kills his victim because she was the witness to an earlier crime is somehow not mature enough to be executed.
I don’t think capital punishment should be imposed lightly, but I rather leave the question of the maturity of the accused to the judgement of twelve good men and women than to twits in black robes.
There is no good defense to the Court’s rational.
Hey let’s ask the victims of those crimes punishable by the death penalty what they think of this ruling?
Oh, that’s right, we can’t. I’m sure they would have agreed with it before they were murdered for no reason except being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While agreeing with opposition to the death penalty and, thus, with this ruling by SOTUS today, I have to say I object to the rhetoric of the article’s author.
I’ve argued long and hard with lots of people, mostly friends of mine, about the death penalty. None of them are barbarians, nor are they evil. Simply put they believe that justice demands that someone guilty of murdering another human being deserves to die. They call it justice, I call it revenge.
I disagree completely with these folks but refuse to question their motivation, their level of civilization, and the state of their psyche.
Kevin Keith retards his argument by resorting to that sort of language.
On Sept. 8, 1985, Sean R. Sellers shot and killed a 36-year-old convenience store clerk in Oklahoma. Sellers later confessed that the motive was to see how it felt to kill someone.
Interestingly, I can’t find the name of the victims. Most sites claim he killed three, two men and a woman.
16 when he committed the crime and 29 when executed. I guess that is the poor sixteen year old mentioned in the article.
I reserve my pity for the victims.
Robert Paul Bower, Vonda Maxine Bellofatto, and Paul Lee Bellofatto
Sellers confession is here
http://www.seansellers.com/new_page_2.htm
Jeff, I couldn’t disagree more. Kennedy et. al. looked to EUROPE for guidance on this, completely dismissing public opinion and legislative process in this country. I have also been reading of the heinous crimes committed by these so-called children. Death is too good for many of them.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. This will fuel the fire to get conservatives on the High Court and other courts, and I’ll be cheering.
I guess this is one of those issues which Jeff can use to get back his liberal cred.
My feelings about the death penalty are genuinely mixed, more opposed than in favor. But I see this SCOTUS decision as another blow to the rule of law. Why should any legislator take his job seriously if the judges can trump whatever he decides? Taking it one step further, why should I put any serious thought into the election of those legislators?
This is not democracy, just an arbitrary exercise of raw power by an elite.
Forgot to mention, Power Line has a much more sane viewpoint on this ruling.
I thought Iran executed a 14 year old girl just a few weeks ago. Did they then outlaw executing minors? Or does women not count?
I blogged on this today opposing the SC decision. I not only favor the death penalty (though I think it should be legal, very rare, and carefully looking into, like abortions) but I don’t think you can just draw an arbitrary line at how old in calendar years a person is before they can be declared “competent” or knowing what they are doing or beyond redemption.
The death penalty may or may not be an effective deterrent for others, but it surely would have been for Simmons, who was the subject of this case. And yes, if you want to call it “revenge” then you can proudly put me in the revenge camp.
These verdicts should be decided on a case to case basis. As gcw says, it’s entirely probable that a 17-year-old will know what he’s doing is wrong just as well as an 18-year-old. In other situations, that may not be the case.
But to slap down an arbitrary age line and claim *this* is when they have full accountability is absurd.
JJ, as usual when an issue interests him, misrepresents the situation.
Those addressed by the decision are adults who committed their crimes while below the age of adulthood–usually age eighteen.
By the time execution rolls around, they’re a good deal older than many soldiers.
Not killing kids.
In my view the death penalty is proxy for the victim’s right of self-defense. What does age have to do with it?
Of course, it’s much more complicated. But such nonsense as that at Left2Right, for example – that the frontal lobes are not fully developed in teenagers, making them incapable to appreciate death – should be summarily ruled out of order by the SC also.
Jeff,
I disagree with you, so I must expel you from my Right Wing Media Gadfly Club!
I’ll be by later to rip the stripes off your uniform.
There will be a backlash to this, I fear. Much like gay marriage in Mass. had a backlash, this will too.
When might it come to a head?
When people realize that the sniper who terrorized the East Coast was underage and he is no longer eligible for the death penalty.
Jeff:
Two quick questions:
If SCOTUS – and by agreement you – argues, in part, that juveniles are emotionally/psychological incapable of being held accountable for the crime of first degree murder and thus capital punishment violates the Constitution, how will you argue against laws designed to, inter alia, protect minors from listening to indecent material broadcast over public airwaves? He who says “A” must also say “B”.
Second: the Court’s majority reliance on international norms or laws today to strike down the execution of juvenies can be used tomorrow to uphold indecency laws or laws punishing “hate speech”. As you probably know, many countries in Europe as well as Canada have enacted a series of “hate speech” laws that have been used to punish individuals who have allegedly “hurt” protected groups through comments, speeches, et cetera. Will tomorrows’ Court use foreign court rulings to uphold the prosecution of Howard Stern?
As with most SCOTUS rulings, it’s the opinion that matter; not the ruling.
I disagree with the Supreme Court like the majority of these posters.
A “kid” who is capable of killing/murder deserves the same penalty. That kid has already crossed the line. Besides, kids are allowed to seek abortions without parental notification or permission, which is killing of the unborn.
We’re realizing the folly of liberal opinion where death is legal and not rare against innocents.
Next stop, Terry Schiavo who deserves to live.
Like others have already said, the Supreme Court won’t allow us to punish those who commit murder under the age of 18, but they will allow mothers to kill their own babies. This includes abortion of all forms and born alive babies that are them killed while the unbilical cord is still attached. This is another case of Courts overstepping their authority.
What happens now whne terrorist like Malvo, kill at 17, drug dealers and gangs make sure the 17 year olds are the enforcers? This is a bad decision and will have may unwanted consequences down the road.
What a shame! Those Columbine assasins killed themselves for no reason. If they had just hung on for a few years, they’d live to old age.
What, again, was wrong with juries deciding these sorts of things based on the facts as presented at trials?
Isn’t everyone using the word “kid” a little too loosely? You’d think we (america) have been knocking off 6 year olds by reading most of the hype on this today. Of course, if we are executing 6 year olds, please correct me.
I am the poster at Lean Left whom Jarvis quotes regarding the execution of juvenile offenders. Thanks for your responses. I’ll offer a few comments:
Regarding “barbarism”: I find it hard to apply any other word to the practice of executing adults for acts committed as children. I did not, however, describe any person with that term. I am willing to take these several respondents’ words for it that their friends who support barbarism are not themselves barbaric (maybe it’s just a hobby for them?), but that does not change the nature of the types of killings they advocate. (Note as well that it does not imply that other types of killings are not also barbaric.)
As to the several respondents who seem to find any political opinion they dislike an excuse for an attack on abortion rights, I have nothing to say other than to note that this seems strangely familiar.
Regarding the Court’s raionale for its ruling, most of the commenters above seem unfamiliar with it. The Court did hold that the execution of juvenile offenders had become unconstitutional, but not that the Constitution had changed, or that they had changed their interpretation of the Constitution. The Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual” punishments. The Court has long held that the definition of “cruel” depends partly on social consensus, and the definition of “unusual” depends partly on how often a penalty is used at all, whether it is used arbitrarily, and whether it is regularly used for the particular type of offense in question. Yesterday’s ruling explicitly relies on the changing social climate as evidence that the social norms defining cruel and unusual punishment have changed, and thus that the terms of that definition have changed, and thus that what was once legal no longer is. This is exactly the reasoning the Court has used before on other types of punishments (it is the grounds for outlawing public whippings), and on other “social norms” issues such as obscenity.
As to the evidence for this changed definition, you may or may not have much appreciation for Europe, but it is hard to overlook the fact that virtually the entire world (and not just the “civilized” world) has abandoned this practice and the US is increasingly embarrassingly behind this shift. It is also relevant that 31 of the 50 states prohibit execution of juvenile offenders, and that of the 7 states that have actually executed a juvenile offender, only 3 have done so in the last 10 years . So, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 62% of the states refused to authorize it at all, 86% refused to ever use it, and 94% have refused to use it in the last decade. Other than Texas (13 out of 22 total executions of juvenile offenders – 4 of them during George W. Bush’s term as governor), only two states have done it more than once. It does sound pretty unmistakably like world opinion and opinion in the US has shifted almost universally against the practice, and that its frequency in the US has declined in recent years to the point that it is almost unheard of everywhere but Texas. Even Texas manages to kill less than one juvenile offender per year on average, making the penalty essentially arbitrary in any individual case. Whether Scalia likes it or not, that is precisely the evidence the Court is required to take into account under its “social norms” interpretation of “cruelty”, and its frequency-of-use interpretation of “unusual.”
In addition, Justice Kennedy’s ruling explicitly cited the fact that defendants under 18 are legal minors under the doctrine that they do not have the judgment to exercise full adult responsibility, and cited psychological research to back that point. It is only logical consistency to note that those who cannot exercise adult responsibility for their behavior also cannot accept the burden of adult moral responsibility for its consequences. If our law is going to regard persons below 18 as not having legal authority over themselves, it cannot then impose legal responsibility on them. (O’Connor would do so on a case-by-case basis, but that’s rather odd – we normally require minors to prove they are responsible *beforehand*, and *then* grant them independence, not simply impose independence on them for the purpose of killing them after the fact.)
Finally, regarding Iran, there is some ambiguity. The early version of the Times story listed Iran, Pakistan, and China as countries that had recently renounced the death penalty for juvenile offenders. The late version of the story on their Web site removed the reference to those countries and but lists Som-alia as the only country beside the US that still allows such executions. The “Death Penalty Information Center” Web site ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=27&did=203#execsworld ) indicates that Iran has passed a bill outlawing executions of juvenile offenders but that it has not yet been signed into law. Amnesty International ( http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-children-stats-eng ) indicates that Iran has executed 4 juvenile offenders since January 2004, including a 17-year-old 6 weeks ago – so apparently they have not enacted the ban yet. Even so, if that leaves the US as the only nation *besides* Iran and Som alia that kills teenage offenders, that’s hardly to our credit.
great news. if i ever have to hire an assasin, i’ll make sure he’s no more than 15 y.o. to do a job. thus, if apprehended, he can get off easily.
for the same reason muslims, use boys to condict ‘honor killings” in germany, as they are unlikely to get more than 5-6 years in prison due to their age.
I oppose capital punishment and I always have, despite wearing a variety of political stripes over the years. If there were a national referendum on the death penalty, I would vote against it, regardless of the age of the convict.
But this is an outrageous decision.
It is not enough that citizens of this country can no longer govern themselves. Now we must be governed by….Europe?
Well, not Europe, just the parts of Europe favored by a majority on the court, since a variety of polls over there show support for the death penalty.
To quote the Talking Points Guy from a few years back:
It’s true that all of America’s G-7 partners, save Japan, have abolished capital punishment, but the reason isn’t, as death-penalty opponents usually assume, that their populations eschew vengeance. In fact, opinion polls show that Europeans and Canadians crave executions almost as much as their American counterparts do. It’s just that their politicians don’t listen to them. In other words, if these countries’ political cultures are morally superior to America’s, it’s because they’re less democratic….
Basically, then, Europe doesn’t have the death penalty because its political systems are less democratic, or at least more insulated from populist impulses, than the U.S. government. And elites know it. Referring to France, a recent article in the UNESCO Courier noted that “action by courageous political leaders has been needed to overcome local public opinion that has remained mostly in favour of the death penalty.” When a 1997 poll showed that 49 percent of Swedes wanted the death penalty reinstated, the country’s justice minister told a reporter: “They don’t really want the death penalty; they are objecting to the increasing violence. I see this as a call to politicians and the justice system to do more.”
I guess there is some penumbra that has been discovered by Justice Kennedy that dictates the new world order. Was there a vote about this that I missed? Do I still get to vote, by the way, or is there some evolving standard set by four states and a dinner party in Brussels that I must attend to? Does it have a website, because I’d like to keep up.
Okay, here’s what going to happen in Northern Virginia and Southern California. The thug culture of the MS-13 gang will start designating underage hit men, now immune from the death penalty. Thanks!
Kevin:
For what it’s worth, I’m against the death penalty although I do believe that it’s constitutional.
It seems to me that to consult “world opinion” on such matters (and how we measure such global views remains a puzzle to me) when it comes to enforcement of the US Constitution is both silly and, most important, dangerous.
Question: If “world opinion” believed that executing mentally retarded murderers was an acceptable practice, could the Supremes use that standard in upholding the execution of the mentally deficient? Would you accept the consultation of “world opinion” in such a decision?
In other words, does consulting “world opinion” go both ways?
Second: May members of the executive and/or legislative branches consult “world opinion” in carrying out laws? May they view and use the rulings of foreign courts – indeed the actions of foreign leaders – in deciding whether their actions are violating US laws and the supreme law of the land?
In other words, do Presidents and Senators get to roam the global landscape for rulings and actions to support their executive and legislative decisions?
Can we not see the extreme danger here in looking outside US law when engaged in judicial review?
SMG
The Court has long held that the definition of “cruel” depends partly on social consensus, and the definition of “unusual” depends partly on how often a penalty is used at all, whether it is used arbitrarily, and whether it is regularly used for the particular type of offense in question. Yesterday’s ruling explicitly relies on the changing social climate as evidence that the social norms defining cruel and unusual punishment have changed, and thus that the terms of that definition have changed, and thus that what was once legal no longer is.
??? Following that logic – if murder ever became a socially acceptable form of activity it would then become legal? Murder has always been perceived, and rightly so, as socially deviant activity. Those that perform such acts are either exiled or punished by their societies. This hasn’t changed in at least 2000 odd years. While I am against the death penalty (for religious and moral reasons) In the above statement a death penalty; when applied evenly and as a penalty for deviant activity, is neither ‘cruel’ nor ‘unusual’. The fact that the defendant is legally a child is moot since the offender isn’t being tried as a juvenile – they are being tried as an adult. Yes it would be wrong to knock off a 6 yr old for killing someone but who would object to a long prison term? When 10 yr old that rapes and murders another 10yr old how should the courts respond? Something needs to be done but taking away one of our society
This is interesting.
After I posted what I thought was a fairly clear explanation of the role “world opinion” plays in the Supreme Court’s decision (i.e., that it has nothing to do with “consulting” other countries; the Court is required by its own logic and precedent to consider whether the death penalty meets a contemporary standard of cruelty, and it takes evidence of contemporary practices across America and overseas *as empirical evidence of that standard as currently understood*), the next three posters immediately objected to “being governed by Europe,” being subject to a “vote” in Europe, and to the Court’s reliance on “world opinion.”
Is it too much to hope that if I point out none of those things occurred you will drop your objections?
Once more: the references to foreign practices are used by the Court *only* as *empirical evidence* of the contemporary understanding of what is regarded as unacceptably cruel punishment. The Court itself set this standard long ago, and there is no other way to go about it. It hardly makes sense to insist that “cruel and unusual” means “what was considered cruel and unusual in the 18th Century”. The phrase requires a contemporary interpretation. I suppose you could object to the Court looking to *foreign* standards of cruelty to determine American standards of practice, but it hardly seems wrong to me to insist that American moral sensitivity matches the best practices in the world, not merely the common practices at home. Allowing America to be the worst country in the world on an important moral issue – as we almost were, until yesterday – simply because Americans like it that way, seems to make a mockery of the meaning of “cruel and unusual.”
At any rate, that’s how the decision works: the reference to foreign practices is merely an empirical point of comparison; it has nothing to do with foreign domination, voting, or world opinion. Like John Kerry’s “global test,” it refers only to the ability of America to face its peers and honestly claim a place among civilized nations. Such a test is obviously more necessary than ever, though yesterday’s ruling was a long-overdue step in the right direction.
This also answers Steve’s question whether “world opinion” “goes both ways”. Since there never was a “consulting of world opinion” in the first place, the issue is moot. If he is asking whether the (hypothetical) fact that general practices worldwide *did* include the execution of juvenile offenders would serve to justify the US in doing so, again that issue is moot because that’s not how the logic of the decision works. There is nothing in the decision – or in Supreme Court history – that seeks to match US policy to that of a worldwide consensus. Again, it takes that consensus as *empirical evidence* regarding *the current understanding of what constitutes cruel punishments*, nothing more. If the rest of the world agreed that executing juveniles was not cruel, that would not require the US to do so – it would merely be evidence that such an action was not currently regarded as cruel. Given (as is actually case now) that practices in the US are vastly less refined than elsewhere, that is evidence that the US is behind the rest of the world, and ought to catch up – but if practices in the US were *more* refined than those outside, arguably the punishment would still not be justified. There is nothing in the Constitution that says we must lower our standards if, compared to other countries, we are not cruel enough – only that we must raise them if, compared to other countries, we are too cruel.
As for Presidents and Senators “roaming the global landscape” for justifications for their actions, this simply doesn’t make sense. Presidents and Senators have authority to make law on their own responsibility – they don’t need a justification, foreign or domestic. The Supreme Court, however, must rule on whether those laws meet the standards imposed by the Constitution. The standard explicitly imposed by the Constitution in this case is that of “cruel and unusual” behavior – a standard that can only be tested by reference to contemporary behavior. Thus, evidence is required, and the Court went and go it – there is nothing else it can do. Whether that is good or bad (and it’s hard to see how those terms apply, since, as noted, the Court had no other choice), it has nothing to do with what the Legislative and Executive branches do or can do.
It seems that opponents of this decision cannot discuss it in any terms other than their prescribed templates of “foreign interference, ” “globalist elitism,” and “dictatorial lawmaking” – even when the Court explicitly cites a completely different, and long-standing, rationale for its decisions. But whether it lends itself to programmatic criticism or not, the decision yesterday is nothing more than the obvious application of well-known, uncontroversial, and, yes, global standards: that mentally incompetent persons cannot be held fully responsible for their actions, that minors are legally held to be mentally incompetent, and that to punish competent persons for acts committed while incompetent is cruel. All these points are already well-established in US law, in areas far removed from the issue at hand. The ruling yesterday merely conformed one tiny area of law – that stood out as an irrational and especially cruel exception to the principles that governed the treatment of minors in other respects – to the logical framework of the rest of the law. It was inevitable on logical grounds alone. The shift in world standards only made our practice more obviously anomalous. What the decision really tells us is not how far the liberal wing of the Court is willing to go to “make law,” but how far the conservative wing of the Court is willing to see the country humiliated before the world. (Kennedy, in 1989, didn’t mind being one of only about 15 countries that were killing people for crimes committed as teenagers. He finally balked at being *almost* the last country to do so now; Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist and O’Connor were perfectly happy to see us be the very last country in the entire world to continue to do so.)
Kevin:
You stated that, in determining the constitutionality of the death penalty as being cruel and unusual punishment, that SCOTUS:
“[T]akes evidence of contemporary practices across America and overseas. . .”
“Overseas”?? What “evidence” is considered? Foreign court rulings? One? Two? A dozen? Or is the evidence foreign laws? Made in only other democracies or also in dictatorships? Sharia law? Napoleonic code? Laws enacted in manners that would be clearly unconstitutional had they been legislated under the US Constitution?
The problems here are endless.
Again, I think you’re dodging the point.
Question again:
IF “overseas” the execution of the mentally infirm was the “norm” or a “contemporary and well-established practice”, than do you believe that SCOTUS should take that “norm” into considering whether that constituted cruel and unusal punishment for American citizens?
I say an emphatic no.
These are US laws made and based on US customs to be applied to US citizens. How the views on the death penalty in Niger or in Bourkina Fasso have any say on the constitutionality of US laws is beyond my meager mind to comprehend. Each of these other countries has its own unique histories and cultures through which laws and customs have developed. Histories and cultures that should have no role for judges in ruling on the constitutionality of US laws under a US Constitution.
SMG
Kevin, you have written a great many words that obscure a pretty simple question. Should European opinion about American jurisprudence decisively influence an American decision in an American court? I think it’s outrageous, you don’t. You are content with the European elite (not the European majority) shaping the Constitution of the United States, I am not. Perhaps Justice Kennedy has updated the oath of office so they can all pledge to uphold the new EU Constitution (though at 551 pages, we’ll have to work out first).
Since there never was a “consulting of world opinion” in the first place, the issue is moot.
Wow. Where did I ever get the idea…oh yeah, from Kennedy:
From the Washington Post:
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 rights 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.
It is just so weird for an American to want the American Constitution to be based on America. Now, maybe if an NGO were involved, but otherwise, that’s just crazy talk! Now shut up and pass the sherry.
NBC or ABC had a segment on this a person identified as a “Conservative Legal Scholar” brought up the issue of gangs farming out their heinous murders to under-18s. While we coddle young ‘uns nowadays, Billy the Kid and others were well under 18 when they started killing people.
If it’s a serious enough crime and the kid knew what he or she was doing, wheel out ol’ Sparky.
Christopher,
You are missing the point. Keith Keith reserves the right to himself to practice the long held belief that if he just skips a few words of what was said, then they won’t matter. MoDo is well known for doing this as if Krugman, Herbert, Frank Rich and a few others. That Kennedy said he applied the foreign practice to the case is not an issue if you just skip those words.
While I can see outlawing the death penalty if there is any possible reservation in whether the defendant is guilty, withholding it in those cases where there is no doubt and where the crime is so heinous is an affront to the victims and to the population at large. Do we really need to see a bunch of Willie Hortons out there in the general population because they got released? Is that really what the criminal justice system should give us? I couldn’t disagree with Keith Keith more if I really tried. I think he has taken an untenable position and tried to obfuscate it by throwing a whole lot of words at it. The end result is still bull by any other name!!
Perhaps we’re all being too detached from this issue. If you stop for a minute, and think about an adult approaching a 15 y.o. with the offer of money to assasinate someone, doesn’t it give you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach? Doesn’t the concept of an adult using a teenager this way, when you *know* that many teenagers are angry enough to *do* anything without yet fully understanding the consequences – doesn’t it make you go a bit cold all over? Would a situation like that be the teenager’s fault? Should they be put to death? No one’s saying that minors who commit terrible crimes shouldn’t be punished, but aren’t they the group most likely to actually be rehabillitated from this kind of crime as they mature?
After I posted what I thought was a fairly clear explanation of the role “world opinion” plays in the Supreme Court’s decision (i.e., that it has nothing to do with “consulting” other countries; the Court is required by its own logic and precedent to consider whether the death penalty meets a contemporary standard of cruelty, and it takes evidence of contemporary practices across America and overseas *as empirical evidence of that standard as currently understood*)…
Yep we definately should look to other nations for examples of contemporary standard. I mean they do such a bang up job of protecting their citizens from religious persecution.
Why would this ruling increase the number of minors committing murder? It’s not as if execution is the only thing holding people back from killing each other. Besides, those kids who are desperate enough to accept assassination assignments probably wish for death everyday anyways. I think it’s fair to give these folks a chance for rehabilitation.
BTW, I did a search for the kid that is said to have been executed 6 weeks ago in Iran. I could only find results in exiled opposition websites. The judiciary has repeatedly said in the past year that it no longer executes those who have committed a crime when below 18.
BTW, I did a search for the kid that is said to have been executed 6 weeks ago in Iran. I could only find results in exiled opposition websites. The judiciary has repeatedly said in the past year that it no longer executes those who have committed a crime when below 18.
So let me get this straight – the word from official, state owned sources indicates that the state … um ….
… Ah, the glories of state owned media. “There are no American Infedels in Baghdad, never!”
BTW Kazemi ‘fell’
Jeff,
This ruling should send a chill down your spine even if you agree with the outcome. This Court has set itself up so that five unelected judges are the sole arbiters of moral standards for a nation of nearly 300 million.
From Scalia’s dissent:
The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation’s moral standards–and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent.
Now that the precedent has been set, how are you going to feel when five unelected judges begin to set moral standards in opposition to your own? It will happen. Just wait.
You don’t like Michael Powell. But at least if you and like-minded people manage to persuade enough people, you can throw out an administration that appoints his kind. You have no such option with the five person junta on the Supreme Court. You just have to wait for them to die and hope their successors will reverse this precedent that you are applauding today.
We’re supposed to have three equal branches of government, each checking the power of the other so that our laws reflect the will of the people. That is no longer the case. We have two subordinate branches of government, and One Court to rule them all …and in the darkness bind them. Government of the people, by the people, for the people be damned.
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Although this ruling is just, there is little cause for celebration, insofar as the decision was only 5-4.
In other words, we have a Supreme Court that only just barely made it illegal for the state to kill children — and a President who admires those justices that support the killing of children.
In a sane society, this would have been a 9-0 decision—indeed, in a sane society, this case would never have existed in the first place.
This ruling should send a chill down your spine even if you agree with the outcome. This Court has set itself up so that five unelected judges are the sole arbiters of moral standards for a nation of nearly 300 million.
Duh. This is their job. Scalia only waxes indignant like this when it’s his four to their five.
Now that the precedent has been set, how are you going to feel when five unelected judges begin to set moral standards in opposition to your own? It will happen. Just wait.
Or howabout when they fix the results of a Presidential election? Oh, wait – already happened!
We’re supposed to have three equal branches of government, each checking the power of the other so that our laws reflect the will of the people. That is no longer the case. We have two subordinate branches of government, and One Court to rule them all …and in the darkness bind them. Government of the people, by the people, for the people be damned.
You know, if you actually spent more time reading the U.S. Constitution rather than the Lord of the Rings you’d understand why the system was established as such. And if you honestly think it’s the judiciary branch of government that’s out of control right about now, I think you’ve been smoking a little too much of that Hobbit “pipe weed”, if you know what I’m saying…
The Jersey Exile (aka oodja)
Ugh. To excuse murder over flimsy rationalization is true barbarism. At best, this is just a foot in the door to overturning the death penalty altogether.
I remember when I was 14 years old… there was nothing… *nothing* about that time in life that would excuse my taking a gun and shooting someone. If so, I would be motivated by the same disregard and hate that it would take to allow me to do it as an adult. 14 year olds still have a lot of maturing to do, but they are certainly not babies who don’t quite understand their surroundings, yet.
What happened to that rabid right wing court that everybody blamed for installing Bush?
You know, I do think that this decision is a little sloppy, especially with its reliance on international law. However, if we’re going to have an arbitrary age at which one becomes an adult (except, of course, for the purposes of buying alcohol, damn those neoprohibitionists at MADD) it seems logical to enforce punishments differently for “adults” and “children”. Why couldn’t I buy tobacco at 11:30pm on March 2, 2000 but could at 12:01am March 3? Did I magically become responsible in that 31 minutes? Did all the weight and wisdom of adulthood come crashing down upon me in that short period of time? I doubt it. Same purchasing booze when I turned 21.
Point is that the ages are arbitrary anyway, and if we’re going to have such cutoffs its logical to have them apply in all areas. Of course, as a libertarian I don’t think that the government has the right to kill you and that the deathpenalty therefore shouldn’t be used, but if we’re going to have both the death penalty and some arbitrary adulthood age, it makes sense to only let the state kill adults.
However, if we’re going to have an arbitrary age at which one becomes an adult (except, of course, for the purposes of buying alcohol, damn those neoprohibitionists at MADD) it seems logical to enforce punishments differently for “adults” and “children”.
I’d add to this the fact that we do, case by case, treat under 18 year olds as adults in some situations. My concern is a slippery slope one. No not the one prompting the elimination of capital punishment (which I’m also concerned about) but rather the punishment of juveniles as adults. If it’s cruel and unusual to execute 17 year old “children”, how can you justify putting 17 year old “children” in an adult prison for the rest of his life? Or in an adult prison at all?
Regarding “barbarism”: I find it hard to apply any other word to the practice of executing adults for acts committed as children.
It saddens me that the execution of a 29 year old is described in terms best reserved for the actions performed by the individual that lead to the sentence of death in the first place.
just barely made it illegal for the state to kill children
Christopher Simmons is not a child.
March 2, 2005
A 12 & 13 year old boy bashed in the head of an 87 year old man with a skateboard to take his Ford Explorer for a joy ride.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/11030353.htm
Yeah, 8 years in juvenille detention is enough punishment, which is probably what they’ll get here in California.
And when science figures out how to just fence in a cancer in your lungs, or colon, or whereever, instead of outright eradicating it, will that, too, be a sign of our more civilized natures?
For that matter, should’t your doctor have to wait until a cancer passes from benign to malignant before he does so?
It’s interesting how some folks can arbitrarily assign a cutoff. Who/what gets to live? Ever use tick spray on your dog? Fumigate your house/apartment? Your okay with killing some things, but there’s a cutoff, right? 17 years is too young, 17 weeks is not old enough. It’d be useful for your argument if you’d announce exactly what the cutoffs are….
Four words – Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold.
And if under 18 is too young to make these sorts of decisions, what does that do to the 17 year old girl who wants an abortion? I’m pro-choice and the logic behind the decision here is that anyone under 18 can’t make a decision for themselves because they lack maturity. Is the Supreme Court willing to go that far in pro-life/pro-choice cases?
Lee Boyd Malvo, part of the DC-snipers, won’t be facing the death penalty anymore.
“A 12 & 13 year old boy bashed in the head of an 87 year old man with a skateboard to take his Ford Explorer for a joy ride. Yeah, 8 years in juvenile detention is enough punishment, which is probably what they’ll get here in California.”
8 years is probably too much. Apparently you folks see nothing wrong with the current state of the American society. Blame the individual you say. What’s the point of locking up kids, or even worse executing them? Obviously the deterrence factor just isn’t there.
Jersey Exile,
Duh. This is their job.
You must not be reading the same Constitution I am, because there is nothing in the American Constition that gives the Supes the role you suggest.
So unless you can point out the provisions in the Constitution that give the Supes these powers, I’ll have no evidence to the contrary that you are a fact-free O’Reilly type blowhard.
Here is a link to the Constitution. Feel free to copy and paste any articles that support your position:
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
Show me where it says that the Supreme Court has the power to MAKE law.
This morning a 16 year old shot and killed his school bus driver for getting him in trouble at school. Thanks to the Supreme Court, he should be out in about ten years as well.
If the Court was moving closer to defining a single age of majority, it would be excusable. (Still wouldn’t improve the opinion, but what hey.)
But so long as there’s a different age for drinking than for the rest of the rights and responsibilities that come with majority, this is a joke.
You can argue that it’s important for society to define a date on which a person becomes a legal adult; case by case analysis tends to find kids responsible early for crimes but virtually never for rights. (What was the last time a sixteen-year-old qualified to vote? I’d like to think that I was more informed at that age than most people are in their forties…)
But if that’s the case, then let ALL the rights and responsibilities of adulthood fall on that day. The hodgepodge we have now does nothing but rob the entire determination of a lot of moral force. Does anybody believe it’s actually -immoral- for a nineteen-year-old to consume a beer? (Hell, let’s get some “foreign practices” in on that ruling!)
Oh, this is good. Not only do the Supreme Usurpers now set domestic policy, but they have also hijacked foreign policy:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=TXEDe4TsWy%2BMcq7nF9IAIh%3D%3D
And at TNR, that is a good thing. Get a load of this quote:
Kennedy made clear, foreign sentiment was “not controlling here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the Court’s determination.” O’Connor has also noted that foreign sentiment plays merely a “confirmatory role.”
Shouldn’t American sentiment play the “confirmatory role?”
This Supreme Court is out of control. It is time to start impeaching some of these usurping, robed bastards.