Supreme Court Bars Death Penalty for Juvenile Killers

As the The New York Times reported the Supreme Court Bars Death Penalty for Juvenile Killers.

Missouri resident Christopher Simmons was 17 years old when kidnapped a neighbor, hog tied her, and threw her off a bridge, killing her. Simmons was sentenced to death for the crime.

Now the Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles may not be sentenced to death. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion and noted that the trend among states was to abolish the practice of imposing the death penalty on juvenile criminals and said, "Our society views juveniles ... as categorically less culpable than the average criminal."

The decision is available (in PDF format) here and here

As Mark Noonan with BlogsForBush indicated Justice Scalia disagreed with the decision, "arguing that there has been no clear trend of declining juvenile executions to justify a growing consensus against the practice."

On GOPbloggers Mark indicated As an opponent of the death penalty I find the ruling bizarre - if its cruel and unusual to execute a 17 year old murderer, then its cruel and unusual to execute an 18 year old murderer. Thing is, the death penalty is never, ever cruel and unusual - it is, in my view, just not the most effective way to punish, with the additional problem of the possibility of executing the innocent. Rather than death, I'd sentence our worst criminals to a very, very hard life term.

Morons.org has some additional information

PowerLineBlog noted that Justice Kennedy relied on international law and practice to "confirm" his view that the juvenile death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. He also cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. signed only subject to the reservation of its right to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

In NRO's The Corner Shannen Coffin noted that SCOTUS cited an unratified treaty as reasoning for it's decision. No one, however, has directly addressed the implications of Scalia's comment that (paraphrasing) "the court now joins and ratifies treaties."

Opinio Juris noted I am not sad to see the juvenile death penalty go away, but I do think it is odd that treaties to which the U.S. government specifically reserved the question at issue (the international legality of the juvenile death penalty) are being used as evidence of what the U.S. Constitution requires.

Personally I am not sure I understand the difference between being killed by a 17 year old and an 18 year old; it seems one is just as dead, and some very bad crimes are being committed by people under 18.

But the thing that disturbs me the most about this decision is that an unratified treaty was used to make the decision.