the difference between 17 and 18
 

Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty for Juveniles

By Hope Yen
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 1, 2005; 10:32 AM

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, ending a practice used in Virginia and 18 other states.

The 5-4 decision throws out the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes.
The executions, the court said, were unconstitutionally cruel.

It was the second major defeat at the high court in three years for supporters of the death penalty. Justices in 2002 banned the execution of the mentally retarded, also citing the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

The court had already outlawed executions for those who were 15 and younger when they committed their crimes.

Tuesday's ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible for execution.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted that most states don't allow the execution of juvenile killers and those that do use the penalty infrequently. The trend, he noted, was to abolish the practice.

"Our society views juveniles ... as categorically less culpable than the average criminal," Kennedy wrote.

Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in just a few other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia. All those countries have gone on record as opposing capital punishment for minors.

The Supreme Court has permitted states to impose capital punishment since 1976 and more than 3,400 inmates await execution in the 38 states that allow death sentences.

Justices were called on to draw an age line in death cases after Missouri's highest court overturned the death sentence given to a 17-year-old Christopher Simmons, who kidnapped a neighbor in Missouri, hog-tied her and threw her off a bridge. Prosecutors say he planned the burglary and killing of Shirley Crook in 1993 and bragged that he could get away with it because of his age.

The four most liberal justices had already gone on record in 2002, calling it "shameful" to execute juvenile killers. Those four, joined by Kennedy, also agreed with Tuesday's decision: Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as expected, voted to uphold the executions. They were joined by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Currently, Virginia and 18 other states allow executions for people under age 18: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Texas.

In a dissent, Scalia decried the decision, arguing that there has been no clear trend of declining juvenile executions to justify a growing consensus against the practice.

"The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: 'In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty,' he wrote in a 24-page dissent.

"The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards," Scalia wrote.

Awesome! :thumbsup:

i don't understand what the problem is. if the crime was heinous enough and the evidence solid enough to result in a conviction and a death sentence, why does it matter if the criminal is 18 years and 1 day old vs 17 years and 11 months old. same crime should generally equal same punishment (all other things being equal)

edit: on what constitutional grounds was this case argued?

Where's Lady Sidhe?

Why does the state say they are an adult at 16 for execution purposes, at 18 for voting and at 21 for drinking? It's bullshit to have three different ages. Pick one and stick to it. 18 seems to be the one that has been picked for most adult related rights. It should apply to all scenarios.

Plus, the death penalty is wrong, so any chipping away at it is a good thing.

ok glatt - if you are opposed to the death penalty in all cases, i understand what you are saying here. i'm in favor of it. (in fact, i think i should be able to apply it's use, at will :rattat: )

i agree about the age differences for different events to a point though. but i look at it in reality. if the death penalty is legal (it is) and used (it is) - why an 18 year old, but not a 17 1/2 year old?

Would like to pay my share of supporting these miscreants for the next 50 years or more? :eyebrow:

She's retired from the field, to other pastures.

For myself, I think it is a bad decision. In time we're going to reap the benefits of our declining educational, ethical, and moral standards and this ruling will change, even if only for expediency's sake.

I have no citations for you to support this, but I understand that it generally costs more to execute a person than it does to lock them up for life. It's all the legal costs of the numerous appeals in a death penalty case, the time spent in special facilities on death row, etc. There is an economy of scale to just throwing them in with the general prison population for life.

But I don't think the death penalty is wrong because it costs more.

I don't know that they stood on solid legal ground in trying to say that there is a sensus plenarius to states moving away from minor's and capital punishment. I think they would have been better to look back at the recent judicial sentencing rulings (US v. Booker and US v Fanfan). There principle there was upheld that a judge cannot make an additional finding of fact in a case that adds additional punishment.

Establishing a defendant as an adult for capital cases seems a really similar practice. The judge is in essence making a finding of fact that says "This person exists under special circumstances, and they are therefore eligible for additional punishment". In this case, the finding of fact is that the defendent is a fully culpable adult in regards to the crime they committed.

It would be similar to a jury finding a person not guilty by reason of insanity, but a judge saying "I find this person to be sane, and therefore guilty". The judge can't decree that finding - it's a jury question.

I'm no lawyer, but that seems like it would have been a better tack to take that saying "All the cool kids are doing it ..."

So OC, when do you think the cut-off point should be? I'm sure you'll agree that a 5 year old should not be sentenced to death for a murder? This is an impossibly vague debate since no two crimes are the same etc etc but at what point does an individual become responsible for their actions? 10? 12? 18? I know some 30 year olds who don't understand that washing makes dishes clean.

if i understand correctly this was not an issue of all 16 year old being eligible for lethal injection. 18 is the standard, but there are cases where someone younger knew exactly what they were doing, chose to do it and deserves the same punishment that someone over 18 deserves. this ruling is saying that if someone is 17 they can jump up and down and scream at the top of their lungs "i am going to commit XYZ crime! i know what i'm doing! you can't put me to death because it's not my birthday!"

i know that is extremely unlikely and even ridiculous, but according to this ruling, even in that case, the individual cannot receive the death sentence.

I believe you and I also believe that's fucked up.
Lawyers are the bane of us all. :(

Yes, but how can you tell? If you kill a 17 year old, by the same logic, you must kill a 5 year old for the same crime.

I am for the most part opposed to the death penalty. If it is wrong to take a human life, then the law should have to adhere to the same morality. It's rather like saying, "Do as I say and not as I do." And, really, the death penalty amounts to an easy out. The convicted killer committed these horrific acts and gets euthanized. That's nice. I bet most of the victim's deaths were nowhere near as easy and painless as lethal injection. Let the bastards rot in a maximum security cell for 40 years to reflect upon their sins. If you want to punish someone, that's the way to do it. It would also end this ridiculously arbitrary line between someone who at age 17 and 364 days commits a murder versus someone who commits a murder at age 18 and 0 days.

Writing a fuzzy limit into law is difficult to do well, and dangerous to do poorly. A hard age limit can make annoying PR-type stories, "he was just 3 days under/over the limit!", but unless the accused is retarded it does avoid a jury being asked to decide whether the person was "adult enough", whatever that means.

The gov't has a different set of responsibilities from either of us. The death penalty is a form of self-defense for society.

Having society decide whether to punish or rehabilitate first would be a good idea.

self-defense definition – self-defense is the use of force to protect oneself or one’s family from harm; self defense is generally justified if it is proportional to the danger posed.

The individual nut in prison poses no serious danger to society. Are you thinking of punishing the nut for the potential crimes of others (deterent argument)? I'm not keen on the state wielding any more power than is absolutely necessary.

Anybody else thinking about the abortion debate's arbitrary line...

Well, it's not working too well. Doesn't the US have one of the highest - if not THE highest - homicide rates of any Western country?

Frankly, I don't think murderers sit around doing cost/benefit analyses before they commit their deeds. ("Let's see. That guy has a $1000 in his pocket. I can walk over and shoot him and be $1000 richer. Of course, if I'm caught, I'll get the death penalty, but then again I COULD claim I'd just eaten a twinkie and get out after two years. Hmmm.... Yes or no?").

Most 17 year olds can understand the consequences of their actions and are capable of malice with forethought. I don't think the same is true of any five year olds.

That's why I qualified my statement with the idea of getting a better system set up.

Studies have shown a 10 lower IQ mean in prisoners compared to people on the outside. And considering the behavior of the people on the outside...

sweet! this is going to make it really easy. all we have to do is give everyone an IQ test and execute those that are criminally stupid.

edit: the more i think, the more i like this plan. it has a multitude of benefits

A) about 3/4 of our politicians would be gone and we could look for some honest replacements
B) it would be a boon to the economy, especially in the labor market, think of all the workers needed to dig graves, etc...
- unemployment would drop to... well, maybe nothing.
C) people who drive at 50 in the left hand lane would be gone!!!

where do i vote for this plan?

*sigh*

As laudable as that idea seems on the surface, it fails in that you can't test for criminal stupidity, only lower cognitive functioning.

It IS an entertaining thought. My freshman survey class would drop down to maybe 5 students. Make MY life easier!

However, in addition to the problem with this solution that TS pointed out, there is also the fact that some of the worst serial killers are highly intelligent - Ted Bundy, for example - so you still wouldn't have eliminated all the predators.

true we wouldn't get 'em all, but we could make a dent in them... it's just the odds we're playing, after all. and if nothing else, it would be like throwing chlorine in the gene pool. and rush hour would probably be better too.

and it just seems more scienterific than killing all the people who annoy me.

I don't know the answer to that is an arbitrary age limit.

Of course not. But in someone not mentally handicapped, 16 is way different than 5.

I think that is exactly why the law should be left as it is (15) and let the adjucating courts decide. That's what they are there for. I do think the line has to be drawn somewhere, but it's not always an easy line to draw. In the case mentioned in the article, the juvenile knew he would not get the death penalty because of his age. In this case, maybe a 15 year old line may have deterred him. No one knows. It's not an issue we can say definitively one way or the other in every case.

Then should the court, rather than some law, also decide for each person when they have the right to vote or to drink? Or should the preferential treatment only be used when the government wants take things away rather than grant them?

i'm not sure that i can adequately put this into written format, but when has that ever stopped a cellarite?

Glatt - i think it is positive thing that our society has decided to give blanket privileges (drinking, voting) at a certain date in time, irrespective of one's maturity. it can be assumed that at certain points in time, say age 18, you have experienced enough in life, and hopefully been educated enough that you can step into the aspect of adult life we call voting. By 21, hopefully you are not as vulnerable to peer pressure situations and can be deemed ready to drink if you choose.

those are freedoms, rights, privileges that are being granted without requirement of a passing grade other than the ability to stay alive for enough birthdays.

the death penalty issue is looking to take something away. it would be wrong to tie that to a birthdate in an arbitrary manner. we should look at the individual and the specifics of the crime.

i'm having a hard time putting to words what i really mean, but it boils down to this, if we are giving something positive it is ok to give a blanket treatment, but if we are taking something away (a life, freedom) then we should look at the individual.

Just to pour a little juice on the fire...

So when is it ok for a person to exert their (given, granted, expressed) right to keep and bear arms?

It varies from state to state, but wolf would be a better one than I to tell you. I believe it's 18 to purchase a rifle and shotgun and 21 for hanguns because of the various gun control laws.

Here is a sample of state laws.....

Simply put, laws are designed to protect 'juveniles' even as it gives them fewer rights. Except for possibly military service, most states would prevent a 17-year-old from legally engaging in dangerous activity.

It is pretty obvious to anyone in the system, from prosecutors and defense attorneys to judges, that the system of capital punishment is broken. The latest figure I heard was 113 death row inmates exonerated in 30 years. Considering DNA evidence is a relatively new, many of these exonerations were done in time consuming reexaminations of crimes. I am sure that some kind of triage was done due to lack of resources, so there is no telling how many others on death row were wrongly convicted.

Now some governors, including GWB, have stated publicly that they believe that no innocent person has been executed. Considering these exonerations, it becomes clear that innocent individuals were sentenced to death row, so the idea that it is impossible or even unlikely that no innocent person was executed becomes less believable.

Taking into account the fact that the system may be flawed, and the legal concept that juveniles are entitled to extra protection under the law, it is not a stretch to say that it is more important to prevent a juvenile from being wrongly executed than an adult, since the adult at least had the right to vote for the government and laws which were being applied against him.

Are such legal technicalities arbitrary since they only take into account age and do not measure maturity? Yes, but that is the only system we have. The law does make exceptions, such as when children emancipate themselves from their parents, but this has to be requested by the juvenile. The system also can make exceptions by declaring adults mentally incompetant, which is why the court disallowed executing the mentally retarded.

Does this leave the law open to abuse? I have already heard prosecutors talking about the recruitment of juvenile assassins in the same way that 'baby bandits' were recruited for bank robberies. Of course, the adults doing this recruiting are engaging in criminal conspiracy and in the case of murder have a better chance of ending up on death row than the juveniles committing the acts.

I personally do not want to see a news story about some 17-year-old kid being executed and later found innocent. The truth is that there is no penalty for wrongful imprisonment and/or execution without proof of misconduct. In many cases, exonerated individuals can have decades of their lives taken away and end up with a bus ticket and a few hundred dollars. The state never admits it was wrong.

That statement is so accurate so many times over. Defense lawyer sleeps through the trial in TX, his client gets the death penalty, and that is called competant legal representation? People on death row *proven* by DNA not to be guilty - and the system refuses to even look at that evidence. The Gov of IL found the system so defective in his state as to completely reverse his opinion and suspend the death penalty.

Frontline (PBS) made the defects in they system woefully obvious. So how do advocates of the death penalty respond? They advocate the status quo. And that is the problem. They system is obviously broken. And yet those who advocate the death penalty make no effort to even acknowledge the system is broken.

The death penalty is being eliminated not so much because it is barbaric. It will be eliminated because those using the death penalty have so violated their obligations. The death penalty is a valuable tool to solve or prevent crimes IF it is used accordingly. But to be effective, how the death penalty is used must be performed by extremely careful logic. And yet we don't do that. Too many prosecutors use the death penalty only for revenge - even refusing to consider future evidence that proves the human innocent.

The problem with the death penalty is in how too many in the system use it. After all, a man can be put to death even when his own lawyer sleeps through the trial? Worse still, this is not the only example of questionable justice in TX that has killed people - then refuses to learn whether they made a mistake.

Honestly, I think its pretty difficult to make a case that eliminating the death penalty for juveniles weakens the penal system. The idea that it will lead to the recruitment of juvenile assasins is absurd.

I'm fine with it.

Taken to the extreme, your viewpoint would be that there should be no minimum age for the death penalty. In theory, (I'll admit it's not likely at all, but in theory,) you could have a 4 year old being put to death if a court found that individual worthy of it. Correct? Or is there some minimum age? Why?

have you ever met a 4 year old who could qualify for the death sentence with... what do they call it - special circumstances? they look at the individual situations so although i don't think a minimum age is necessary, i can't fathom a situation where a 4 year old would be eligible for the death penalty.

You never met my youngest nephew, aged 4. The last time my Sis and her two kids (one being him) came up for a visit, I seriously considered bringing some volatile substance home from the lab and letting him inhale enough fumes to knock him out for 36 hours!

and to add a little fuel to the fire...

how is it that a 16 year old girl has the mental capacity and maturity to have an abortion without parental notification, but the same girl wouldn't have the mental capacity to be held responsible for her criminal actions in regards to the death penalty?

one side or the other of that equation doesn't jive. and this case doesn't argue the legality of the death penalty - it is the application of the legal death penalty to those under the age of 18.

also - in what other supreme court case has one of the justices relied upon international law and national consensus in making a decision. i thought the supreme court was only supposed to apply the constitution, etc... in deciding these matters.

Well, the Constitution uses the adjectives "cruel" and "unusual", whose meanings when applied to punishment definitely evolve over time.

right HM, but they weren't deciding on the death penalty. only the age at which a crime must be committed after, in order to be sentenced to death.

And they decided it was crueler and more unusual to execute a child than an adult, and there was already a legal definition of a child. A cutoff age isn't a perfect definition of childhood, but it's all we've got.

any comment on how that definition of childhood then applies back to parental notification on abortion?

There was a recent intersting paper to do with neurological functioning of teenagers that demonstrated solid proof that they simply aren't capable of the same level of reasoning, particularly in stressful situations as adults.

There's my gasoline for the pile.

I'm not sure what the details were on the parental notification ruling.

There are lots of different rights/privileges/responsibilities granted as a person grows up.

Abortions (puberty. aka 12-13)
Driving (15 years old in some places)
voting/draft/jury duty/enter into contract/ etc (18)
Drinking (21)

I think 18 should be the age of legal adulthood for as much as possible. I would support both driving and drinking being moved to age 18. With abortion, biology is the determining factor. A girl will become able to reproduce at 12-13 regardless of what a legislator would like. I think a special case needs to be made for that situation, even if the girl still isn't as mentally mature as I would like. If she's old enough to get pregnant, she's old enough to consent to an abortion.

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.

I don't really care that much about the juvenile death penalty itself. i am more concerned with the idea that a supreme court justice has relied upon international law and national consensus in a ruling.

I am confused on how a person can be too immature to be held accountable for their actions in regards to the death penalty, but mature enough to decide upon a surgical procedure without parental notification. (notice I say notification, not consent.)

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".