Well, we can do that. The reason we don’t is because making sure that 17 year olds are not mature enough to purchase alcohol, have sex, and smoke isn’t as important as making sure that 17 year olds are mature enough to execute. We’re not willing to spend thousands of hours of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars putting on evidence before a judge so some 17 year old can buy cigarettes. It’s not a matter of hypocrisy; it’s a matter of the relative importance of those decisions and the amount of effort we’re willing to put into making the right decision in each case.
I’m surprised how few people know this. And, this is still common in many parts of the world.
Not when interpreting the United States Constitution it doesn’t. And it is not up to the judiciary to decide the rest of the world’s opinions when deciding con-law. Unless, of course you would prefer the opinions of foreign governments to be able to decide what should go into the US Constitution. Then we can agree to strongly disagree.
Actually, those countries abolished capital punishment for juveniles before we did! Here’s a quote from the opinion of the court:
“Respondent and his amici have submitted, and petitioner does not contest, that only seven countries other than the United States have executed juvenile offenders since 1990: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China. Since then each of these countries has either abolished capital punishment for juveniles or made public disavowal of the practice. Brief for Respondent 49-50. In sum, it is fair to say that the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty.”
Ed
I have to echo the concern others have raised about the courts referencing what foreign governments do. The legislative process is perfectly capable of taking “common international standards” into account when and if the people choose to do so. In particular, the reference to a treaty which the US explicitly declined to sign is just beyond the pale. I don’t care if only the US and Somalia have declined to sign it-- that authority is explicitly given to the executive branch (with advice and consent of the Senate) by the constitution. I realize, of course, that these were not the only reason listed in the majority opinion, but what the hell are they doing there in the first place?
Certainly I had to make moral and ethical judgements. In addition to those made by everyone every day, I had additional obligations in this area as an American serviceman stationed overseas and living on my own in an Italian apartment.
The consequences of failings in this area could have been far worse than if I were a civilian. I refer you to the Okinawa rape case of a few years back as an illustration of just how serious this can be.
My posting was about people over 25 doing so, which is happening more and more. You were the one who mentioned 25 as a cutoff here, yet you concede, and the evidence shows, far more people delaying their adulthood well past this point.
What’s it to me? In addition to causing problems within my own family, I believe this has broader societal impact, and that this might well be a net negative. Independent living is an American ideal, yet some people are willing to trade this for security. This limits them at this point in their life at the same time it places additional burdens on the parents.
At any rate, it is tangential to this discussion. I’d be interested in discussing the issue further at some other time.
In legitimate constitutional cases, sure. And we can disagree on whether the death penalty as lately constituted posed a constitutional problem. Not all that is wrong with society, though, is unconstitutional - a point I think a lot of people miss.
I never said they didn’t, and this is what treaties negotiated by the executive branch and ratified by the legislature are for. Unless those treaties are so ratified, though, they have no force in American law, and should not be used as a justification for decisions on American law.
We have our own extensive jurisprudence, our own strong constitutional tradition, properly ratified treaties and our own legislatures to make law. This should be sufficient to provide a framework for judicial interpretation.
Obviously. At any point, the legislature is free to amend the constitution if they think the court has not correctly understood it.
Well, it is not a matter of shortsightedness. Was Congress being shortsighted when it removed the federal death penalty from those under 18 at the time the crime was committed? Were the other 29 states? The Supreme Court acts with what it thinks is reasonable prudence. Should they be in error, we are not reduced to handwringing and riots. The legislature is just as much there prior to the ruling as it is after it.
I trust that amendment to kill minors will be coming along any day…?
I think you will agree that intensive millitary training gives a person a different mindset than a civilian-- in a sense, the millitary trains you to think in a millitary fashion, almost reprogramming you mentally, if you will.
Most people do not have this sort of intensive mental training-- hell, some people get practically no training at all. My husband works with over 2,500 of these people in the correctional institute.
All I am saying is that you cannot compare your highly trained and disciplined mind to that of an average young person.
I do understand what you’re saying, and I do agree with you to some extent. My only point is that America is not an “island.” I do think that in some cases, we should take wise decisions by the high courts of other countries into account-- not basing our decisions on them, per se, but seeing them as valuable input. You never know when a point will hit home in the “Oh-I-never-thought-of-itthat-way-before” sense.
We are a sovreign nation, but we are also citizens of the world. I personally cringe at the idea of other nations looking at us as barbaric or cruel. I think many people here in the States see America as a shining beacon of hope and that we have an admirable, strong dedication to human rights. It’s hard to justify this viewpoint if we’re standing with rogue nations in our practices.
Which cases are those and how do you ensure that only those “some cases” are the ones where the SC takes other countries’ courts’ opinion into account? It sounds like you are saying “it’s OK as long as I agree with it.” But there is nothing to make sure that you will always agree with it.
But the issue isn’t whether we a 24 year old, an 18 year old, or even a 16 year old has a fully formed prefrontal cortex. It’s whether a 24/18/16 year old’s prefrontal cortex is mature enough to be able to tell that murder is wrong. And I don’t think you have to have a fully formed prefrontal cortex to be able to tell that it’s wrong to kill people without adequate justification. And if someone’s brain is so underdeveloped that they don’t know that murder is wrong, then under our current system, that individual will not be found guilty of murder by reason of insanity, and won’t be subject to the death penalty.
The question isn’t whether the foreign nations are correct. I’d argue that in this case, they were. But what do we do when the foreign nations are not correct?
And if the foreign nations are correct, then the best redress was through the legislature and executive. In other words, pass laws restricting the execution of juvenile defendants, just like they did in (I believe) 31 states already.
They’ve always been immaterial on matters of Constitutionality. The Constitution doesn’t say anything about what the general public decides to be cruel and unusual in a TV poll. It inserts the category and leaves it to the courts to decide what it means. This decision is exactly what was intended by that usage.
The alternative is hundreds of people in robes deciding what it means and coming to different conclusions, or thousands of jurors doing the same thing. It is an essential principle of American jurisprudence that the Federal Constitution be applied uniformly throughout the nation. Despite what’s being pushed here, latitude given to individual cases is not meant to be as wide as possible in our legal system. Similar cases are supposed to get similar results across the board.
Did you not see the OJ trial? Have you not seen the statistics about DNA reversals for death row cases? If you put twelve people too dumb to avoid jury duty in a room together, you are going to get a decision that has little to do with either law or fact.
That means they wrote a decision you didn’t like the wording of. The legal principles for the decision are sound and are based on the US Constitution and US precedent. This isn’t a principled argument, it’s a nitpick.
That’s why you’re not on the SC. If we followed discretionary principles on issues of Constitutional law, desegregation would have been enforced in the Northeast but not the South. The pledge would include “Under God” in the East but not the West. The whole thing would be pointless. We abandoned the system you’re arguing centuries ago in favor of a unified federal government. The Constitution means the same thing in Alabama, Maine, California, and Hawaii. It’s the role of the SC to enforce that principle.
How ironic that the decision came on the same day that a 14-year old schoolbus passenger shot and killed his/her bus driver on the bus in front of 20 other students.
(No cite-heard on news-sidn’t catch location-maybe cited elsewhere on Board)
What? Do you think I am advocating the killing of minors? Congress is not short sighted in making laws. SCOTUS is because they have no authority to make laws. Just interpret them. It is short sighted when you take away the peoples power to make the law without a Constitutional Amendment, (which we pass around like candy right?) OR put in different thinking Justices.
Would there be riots in the streets if a conservative court finds abortion against the constitution based on some sort of interpreted right to life? Kind of how they made up the right to privacy? Before R.V.W abortion was legal in many states. A ban by the courts would make that impossible.
How soon do you reckon an amendment to kill babies would come along?
I say this, not because I disagree with the outcome of either case, but because it is not the courts job to arbitrarily make laws. If they think the death penalty is not cruel and unusual then they should stick with that and not make up arbitrary restrictions. If they think abortion is a right to privacy, don’t pull a term limit out of their asses when the Constitutional right to abortion sounds icky and can be infringed upon.
If they think more laws should be made on a subject so that they can do a better job on itnerpreting them then they should petition the legislators to make those laws more clear by amending them or making new ones. Because that is their job. Not have 9 people sit on some sacrosanct dais to change the country to their personal views.
I wouldn’t consider this arbitrary. Pretty much everyone would agree there is some age the death penalty is too young for. Note the “cruel and unusual” clause WAS something left to the courts. The courts interpret the Constitution. When it gets arbitrary is when the courts find things in the Constitution that doesn’t seem to be there.
A lot sooner than an amendment to kill minors, IMO. There’s a lot more public support for keeping abortion legal than for executing teenagers.
How are they to interpret “cruel and unusual” to you? Where do they look? What law tells them? As rfgdxm says, it is up to the courts to interpret that in the first place. No one has suggested how else it is to be understood so far, no one else has mentioned the mechanism. “Oh, but I didn’t want the courts to interpret it like that.” Why is that the court’s fault? You left it up to them, and they decided.
Which, as a standard, paradoxically means every amendment is short-sighted. Judges are not robots, and legislators cannot account for every situation that arises. There was a time when SCOTUS felt that the execution of minors was reasonable, given the state of the union at the time. Now they feel it has swung around. When SCOTUS heard the case originally, and sided in favor of executing 17-year olds, shouldn’t our Rule of Law eyebrows been raised? “They could have read that the other way, let’s pass some laws now…” Well, I guess legislatures are short-sighted, too…
That seems unlikely. What seems likely is that they would overturn Roe, meaning that states can pass laws one way or the other again.
Made it up?
You have got to be kidding me. In 1988 it didn’t “seem” to be there but now it does? That’s arbitrary judgement no matter how you look at it.
Possibly, but, IMO I don’t see an amendment ever passed where abortion on demand is some sort of fundamental right. Especially once the debate is on a more level playing field.
That’s the crux. if no one tells them then they shouldn’t make the shit up. They, more often than not, refuse to look at cases because it is not within their purview or their jurisdiction. In this case they disdided to go with consensus. Wouldn’t the proper mechanism for deciding consensus be by letting the legislators decide?
Legislators are short sighted. That is why they have the ability to pass laws and amendments to fit with the current times. Justices are not. That is one of the reasons they have life terms and can’t change laws or pass amendments.
And I guess it was seen as likely that they deicded the way they did on Roe. Funny it was seen as a major shock that effected pretty much every state.
“The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.”
It’s funny how the Constitution doesn’t currently mention any right to life, but I don’t see how that couldn’t be inferred in the near future regarding capital punishment and possibly abortion.
There’s an emerging consensus among state legislatures and voters on the subject of gay marriage, and Massachusetts and Vermont are outliers in this area.
I can only imagine the wrath on this board if civil unions in Vermont and gay marriage in Massachusetts were invalidated on the basis of this alleged consensus.
Yes, the Constitution must be applied equally everywhere. But that doesn’t mean that it has to be applied in the manner you argue.
Look, the Constitution provides a baseline of rights. The states are always free to provide their citizens more protections than are afforded in the Constitution. That’s why, despite the fact that the Supreme Court decided that execution of minors was Constitutional in 1989, the majority of states decided to prohibit it in 2005.
So my argument does not require there to be different applications of the Constitution in different states. It just means that my standard is the one being applied.
Moreover, there is nothing in the Constitution that says that the same crime must receive the same punishment in different states. Each state has its own criminal code, and each state sets whatever punishments it thinks are adequate and just. That’s why the punishment for murder is different in Texas than it is in Illinois. And there’s nothing unconstitutional about that.
I’m guessing the OJ trial is the only one you’ve watched.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the American justice system is the worst in the world … except for all the others. The truth is that jurors and judges are generally exceedingly careful and deliberate, and they take their duty seriously, and they almost always do a wonderful job. There are doctors and engineers and scientists and college professors that serve on juries, so your comments about them being “dumb” are ridiculous. And I’m aware of the fact that DNA evidence generally confirms almost all of the death row cases, which for some reason you seem to find disheartening.
But if you think there’s a better method for criminal justice, I’d love to hear your suggestion.
You’re wrong on just about everything here.
It’s not that I don’t like the wording of the decision. The Supreme Court commits its opinions to writing for an important reason: to provide guidance to other and future Courts in their decision-making. This is something called “precedent,” and is supposed to be applied by lower courts as well as the Supreme Court in the future. It’s the main job of the Supreme Court to provide precedent for lower and future courts.
By relying on foreign sources of law and mandating that the US must follow the obligations of treaties that the President and legislature have rejected, the Supreme Court is setting a dangerous precedent. It is also exceeding its enumerated powers under the Constitution.
The decision was also not based on the US Constitution and US precedent. In fact, precedent was clearly dictated by the US Supreme Court’s decision on this very issue in 1989, and which arrived at the opposite conclusion. So I’m at a total loss for how anyone can argue that this decision was mandated by the Constitution and precedent.
So you can see that my issues are anything but nitpicks. They go to the fundamental role of the US Supreme Court, separation of powers, federalism, and stare decisis.
This is just odd. You cut the last sentence of one of my statements and pasted it with another post, and then your response doesn’t address the issues raised in either post. Was this some kind of a mistake? Or could you please explain to me how what you’ve said here relates to either (a) the fact that our justice system already had a built-in protection for immature individuals insofar as it decided the maturity of individual defendants based on their individual facts and circumstances or (b) the fact that the Supreme Court had already decided that it was unconstitutional to execute people under the age of 16?
Certainly the Court is free to set new precedents, though.
Pleasey vs. Ferguson was decided in 1896 and the Court, in its widsom, found that “separate but equal” accommodations for blacks were a perfectly Constitutional concept. In 1954 the Court, presumably operating under the same Constitution as before, found that the concept of “separate but equal” was anything but Constitutional when it ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education. Granted, the shift took 60 years, but that’s beside the point. Perhaps this Court just realized the error of its way more quickly than other Courts before it. Justice Powell recognized the error in his thinking pretty soon after the Bowers v. Hardwick decision came down, and was quoted as saying so. That case was decided in 1986 and the Court did a complete reversal of its thinking in Lawrence v. State of Texas just seven years later.
Precedent ain’t what it used to be, apparently. What’s changed?