WARNING! POLITICALLY QUESTIONALABLE POST BELOW!
Read at your own risk. You may not like my views on this… And that’s cool, feel free to flame me, but do it in a thoughtful, intelligent way or I will just delete your comment and ban you from making comments. Thanks!

In yesterday’s paper, there is an article titled "Justices decline to review 2 capital murder cases". I’m going to summarize it here.

"One for a man given the death penalty for a killing committed when he was 17 and the other for a man who has spent nearly three decades waiting to die."

The court was split on executing juvenile killers. "Four said it was "shameful" to execute juvenile killers."

"The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society." Wrote Justice John Paul Steven’s, who was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Justice Clarence Thomas expressed outrage at the thought of overturning death-penalty convictions for longtime death-row inmates.

The juvenile case rejected by the court Monday involved a Kentucky man sentenced to death for abducting, sodomizing and killing a gas station attendant when he was 17. Kevin Stanford, now 39 has been on death row since 1982. In 1989, the high court used Mr. Stanford’s case to uphold juvenile executions.

Mr. Stanford’s lawyers argued that such executions violate not only the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment but an international treaty signed by the US. Like the question of mental retardation, the issue of juvenile killer turns on the defendant’s capacity to understand the situation and level of culpability.

Dianne Clements of the victims’ rights group Justice For All said the dissenting justices appear to be trying to draw public support with the strongly worded opinion.

"When you say juvenile, your mind’s eye paints a picture of a cherubic child," she said. "It’s not a fair fight."

Justice Breyer also filled a separate opinion to say the court should consider whether it is unconstitutional to leave inmates on death row for extended time.

He said FL inmate Charles Foster has spent more than 27 years in prison and "if executed, Foster, now 55, will have been punished both by death and also by more than a generation spent in death row’s twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is both unusual and cruel."

In response, Justice Thomas said Mr. Foster wouldn’t be in his situation if he hadn’t slit a man’s throat and then cut his spine when he realized the man was still breathing.
The end..
*note - this article was taken from the Tuesday Dallas Morning News… I tried to find this online, but they have a shitty, shitty site that is hard to navigate…

Now here is my opinion on all of this.

Why should a murderer who has been convicted by a jury and sentenced to death by said jury be spared because he was 17 at the time of the crime? The opponents of this say "the issue of juvenile killer turns on the defendant’s capacity to understand the situation and level of culpability." So am I to believe that a 17 year old is to young and naïve to realize that committing a particularly heinous murder is wrong? And that doing so could land them in prison and very possibly on death row? I find that hard to believe.. Am I to believe that at age 18 a person is considered an adult and can do everything but drink and would not longer be considered a juvenile by the state, but at 17 one would still be sketchy on this right/wrong thing, legal/illegal, go to jail/get a slap on the wrist thing. They aren’t talking about a 10 year old, but a 17 year old. I don’t know about you, but I recall being 17. I don’t remember being so stupid and unable to understand the ramifications of my actions or the level of my responsibility. Sounds like a bunch of slick lawyer lingo meant to cloud the real facts (that this person is GUILTY) and get someone a lighter sentence or out of prison.

About a death row inmate waiting for execution for 27 years. That is deplorable. His sentence should have been carried out years ago. And Justice Breyer asking whether it’s cruel and unusual… well yes and no.. yes it’s cruel.. to the victims family to have to wait so long to get closure, unusual.. not really. Many, many convicted murders on death row spend years and years and hundreds of thousands in tax payer dollars appealing their conviction and execution. In this country it is extremely rare that an execution is carried out in a timely manner. That is a crying shame, especially when the innocent victim was brutally murdered in a timely manner.

That’s it.. that’s all… I’m done for now. I have a few other articles that got me riled up that I’ll write about tomorrow, I think this is more than enough for one post. Go ahead and flame me if you like - I've got my asbestos undies on.