Court to consider ending execution of juveniles

[muchacho]

And now, some potentially good news...

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Court to consider ending execution of juveniles
By STEPHEN HENDERSON
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether executing young killers violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment, continuing the justices' substantial review of death penalty practices in this country.

The high court already has eliminated executions of the mentally retarded, insisted that juries - not judges - impose death sentences, chastised lower courts for ignoring death penalty appeals and significantly raised standards for capital defense counsel.

Now the justices will take up the case of Missouri death row inmate Christopher Simmons, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994. Simmons was 17 years old when he tossed Shirley Crook off a railroad trestle into a river after a botched robbery a year earlier.

The Missouri Supreme Court overturned Simmons' sentence, relying heavily on the high court's 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, which outlawed executions of the mentally retarded. The "evolving standards of decency" the high court justices cited in that case should be extended to make executing young killers unconstitutional, the Missouri court wrote.

The Missouri decision was unusual in its attempt to apply a high court ruling to an area of law it didn't address at all. Angry dissents on the Missouri bench said that only the U.S. Supreme Court was qualified to make that kind of leap.

Still, some experts say the Missouri decision was a reasonable follow-up to the court's decision on executions of the mentally retarded.

"I think it's very difficult to square the Atkins decision with the idea that it's OK to execute juveniles," said Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights and a lecturer at Yale Law School. "It seems like the juvenile case should probably have been decided before the mental retardation case" from a logical standpoint, Bright said.

In 1989, the high court ruled it unconstitutional for states to put people to death for crimes they committed before they were 16, but the decision left open the possibility of executing 16- and 17-year-olds.

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7801631.htm

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. We should join the civilized world...

and abolish the death penalty, period.

[muchacho]

2. agreed

The Middle East should not be our model for justice.

[pinto]

4. kick

[Amager]

3. IT's about damn time

[religiousleft]

5. Another step

toward ending this barbarity.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

6. After they execute the children at Gitmo Bay. Clean slate...vomit. n/t

[prolesunited]

7. Did you realize we are only one of four countries worldwide

that allows the execution of juveniles?

Since 2000, only four countries in the world are known to have executed juveniles: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iran, Pakistan, and the United States. Further narrowing this list,Pakistan recently abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders and the DRC has established a moratorium on executions.

In the past five years, the United States has executed 13 juvenile offenders, 3 in the year 2002 alone. Eight of these executions took place in the state of Texas. The rest of the world combined carried out five such executions. Scott Hain was executed in Oklahoma on April 13 of this year, making the U.S. the first country to execute a juvenile offender in 2003.

Twenty-two U.S. states allow for the execution of people who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime. As of December 2002, around 80 juvenile offenders sat on death row; this constitutes approximately 2% of the total death row population.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/juveniles.html

Does anyone else find this disturbing?

[koopie57]

8. I don't understand these people

they believe abortion is murder but those who murder abortionists are righteous in their beliefs and actions...

they will execute a child if the child commits a crime ...

It just makes me crazy!!!

they believe abortion is wrong cuz it takes a life, but the death penalty is not wrong even though it takes a life ...

they put Dr. Kevorkian in jail because he ended the lives of people who asked him for his help, but those who want to live, they kill ...

And yet, they will walk around with their bibles and rosaries praying for the wicked people who are pro-choice and anti-death penalty ....

I need a damn drink!

[David__77]

9. I believe the court will ban this practice.

It would be in line with other recent rulings and concerns raised by Kennedy and O'Conner. Those two, plus four "liberals," would probably at the least severely restrict its application.