Or be qualified to kill other people at 18...

Is it pre- or post- notification?

Lookout123 is using binary logic to confuse the issue. The world is ternary. Obviously 4 year olds that kill multiple people (ie playing sheriff with what turns out to be a live gun) are not eligible for capital punishment. Some 16 years old also may not be. But by 18, people are expected to be sufficiently responsible to be eligible.

As for abortion, obviously an 11 year old cannot make a decision. Many 16 year old are more than able to make that decision. Most all 18 year olds are expected to be able to make that decision. Once we eliminate the intentional distortion by Lookout123 using binary logic, then his question - based only in binary logic - becomes irrelevant.

Now, from Lookout123's perspective, the decision by a 16 year old to have an abortion is too major. But that is Lookout123's need to impose his religious beliefs on others. In law, we use pragmatic reality - not religion - to make the rules. Lookout123 would deny all 16 year old girls - even those responsible enough to drive a car - the right to make pragmatic decisions about her body? Pragmatic - not religious - reasons are what good people are more concerned about. Her rights - and not the distortions and lies that come from religious beliefs or binary logic - are most important.

Yes some 16 year olds are not responsible enough to make decisions. And some 21 year olds are not responsible enough to drive cars. But we do not deny all 16 year old girls and 21 year old drivers their rights only because some might not be responsible. They both lie in a third category that Lookout123's binary logic denies existance.

As Happy Monkey noted, the court set arbitrary age guidelines even on the death penalty. They did the best they could do considering one major and glaring fact. The system has repeatedly demonstrated that it is too perverted to make death penalty decisions. A system so perverted that it cannot be trusted to make death penalty decisions concerning 4 year olds and 15 year olds. Currently we have not yet decided whether the system is also so perverted for 25 year olds. And yet the US is the only major nation to continue killing people using a system that has repeatedly been found perverted.

Let’s keep this in perspective. I believe the death penalty could be a powerful tool for law enforcement. I also believe many 16 year olds are responsible enough to qualify for capital punishment. But repeatedly demonstrated is prosecution and judicial system failure that has so perverted that function. Capital punishment has been applied so irresponsibly that it will probably (eventually) be removed from the US legal system altogether. Not so much because the death penalty is barbaric. The US judicial system does not have a capacity to implement the death penalty responsibly.

Only eliminated from the death penalty were those that would not (group 1) and might not (group 2) deserve capital punishment. Group 3 - a future decision is pending. Again, eliminate binary logic to eliminate the distortions.

I admit I did NOT read the entire post that tw put up there. I read just enough to know that tw HATES lookout without any LOGICAL merit. You might even say that tw hates lookout on a purely emotional basis.

Only the emotional - those obvious bias - post a reply to something they did not read. You insult me with your emotion. I insult you with facts. Will you continue to insuilt or become logical - and read that post.

Becoming logical is enigmatic. I've read-entirely-posts made by you. You obfuscate your own purpose by being so ungodly tedious. I admit that I am emotional--why do you suppose that to be inferior to your approach? The intuitive will always endow the factual but little the other way 'round.

It seems I don't understand your constitution very well. Surely this bit of the D of I...
states that the right to life is unalienable, and therefore means that ANY execution is unconstitutional???

don't stress it Brianna. i don't give tw's posts a second thought anymore. anyone who refuses to answer any questions asked of them while demanding answers to all of the minutae they spend their days mulling over isn't really worthy of my time. tw thinks it is acceptable behaviour to call someone's manhood, integrity, and honesty into question simply because he is dissatisfied with their view of things. in other words, tw is an illogical emotional bitch. not good engineer material if you ask me. maybe that is why he is often a consultant. that is still a euphamism for frequently unemployed, right?

and tw, before you waste your keystrokes - yes i'm stupid and george bush smells. oh yeah, he is a mental midget too. there i just saved you 3000 keystrokes and a couple pages of reading for all the rest of the cellarites.

I'm no death penalty supporter, but it also says "Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", and I don't see jails going anywhere soon.

Oh, we're supposed to have all sorts of stuff - "consent of the governed" and all that. We are supposed to have the right to "peaceful assembly" - tell that to the folks who got arrested at the RNC. We're supposed to have the right to be free from "unreasonable search and seizure." Tell that to the laws which have arisen out of the war on drugs and the Patriot Act. We're supposed to have the right to "due process" and "habeas corpus". Go tell that to the people at Gitmo. We're supposed to be spared "cruel and unusual punishment." Go tell that to Donald Rumsfeld.

We have pretty words that we can sing ourselves to sleep with. In the morning, Homeland Security will still be waiting at our doors.

As has been posted so many times before, there is nothing wrong with emotion. In fact emotion is a very powerful tool. However when emotion supplants logical thought, then the person becomes his own worst enemy.

Yes I admit many find the concepts of binary verses ternary logic to be difficult. It is why lawyers can so routinely spin outright lies into a not guilty verdict.

However, if you find the post enigmatic, then go somewhere else or ask questions. That would be the logical response. The strictly emotional response is to attack. The emotional and irrational response is to attack and insult something one could not even bother to read.

Nothing wrong with emotion - as long as the emotion is supported by solid logical reasoning. But that means one first must to read it. Instead you attacked without even bothering to read. Did you read the part where I said how pretty you are?

In the meantime, Lookout123 posts distortions using binary logic to confuse the issue. Even he does not deny that. So be it. Discussion complete. Let's see if he can comprehend ternary logic.

This ruling takes the death penalty off the table for premeditated murders by teens (and there certainly are such things), as well as for a good deal of gang violence.

Oh, I thought you were talking about lookout when I read that part...

*wipes hot chocolate off the monitor and keyboard*

[quote=lookout123]I saw the same study Jaguar. Can't find it now though, of course. Previously they thought the brain was fully mature at 19-21, now they are saying 24-25. Big big difference. anyone who had a few years between high school and college could have told you that without spending millions on the research.[quote]

The brain isn't fully mature until you're dead. It never stops changing. The idea that an average 18-year-old can't distinguish between right and wrong is ridiculous.

Anyway, right after I heard the story on SCOTUS nixing the death penalty for under-18s, I heard a story about three locally infamous teenagers who lured a fourth to an isolated spot, then beat him to death and robbed his corpse and celebrated. And they did it for the thrill. I suspect KYW (local news station) was doing a little editorializing by their story placement, as my immediate reaction was "and THAT is why we need the death penalty for minors".