I haven’t written on this topic before; discussing the death penalty bothers me. I am not convinced that the death penalty is a substantial deterrent to others. It’s a deterrent to the dead person, though.
But I do want to rant a bit about the decision from the Supreme Court yesterday who found that the death penalty for minors is cruel and unusual punishment. In overturning the death penalty for minors on the books in 19 states, the US Supreme Court based their decision on a “national consensus,” “overwhelming weight of international opinion,” and that teens are “less culpable” for their crimes.
- National consensus? 19 states had laws allowing capital punishment for minors, 18 states against. The remaining states generally allow trying minors as adults. And since when did the Supreme Court rule that “national consensus” is a good judge of what is constitutional? The local Houston Chronicle had a poll recently that showed only 20% of those polled think the Supreme Court made the right decision, 30% think the Supreme Court went too far and it depends on the case, and 50% think juveniles should answer for their crimes. National consensus? Wouldn’t a better judge of “national consensus” be what each state legislature voted for? In a scathing dissent, Judge Antonin Scalia wrote, “The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation’s moral standards.”
- International opinion? As a measure of determining what is constitutional? Why don’t we just let the corrupt United Nations write our laws for us then?
- Less culpable? Well, now there’s a pandora’s box. Are you also less culpable if you were drunk? On drugs? The “less culpable” argument was supported by the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, which oddly enough opposes parental notification for teenage abortion because the teens *are* capable of making such moral judgements.
Like I said, I’m not comfortable with the death penalty; given the chance, I’d probably vote against it. I just think the whole Supreme Court ruling stinks of activist judges writing laws according to their own personal value judgements. They’re supposed to be evaluating whether a law is constitutional, not whether Sweden approves of it.
The full Supreme Court brain fart can be read here. Further reading here and here and here and here.
Chasing the Wind 
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