(Streib online)
Regardless of the source of the ethical view there is rising tides that express the evolving attitude that the death penalty, in any case is not a deterrent and is ethically wrong, regardless of the crime or the circumstances of it. The ethical implications of this ruling clearly create issues surrounding age of consent, as the determining factor of the decision, if an individual is not of the age to consent to vote, joint the military, or even buy alcohol, cigarettes or even a lottery ticket in most states they should therefore not be of the age to consent to an understanding of or a level of lethal responsibility for their violent actions.
The ruling clearly demonstrates an adherence with the historical juvenile justice system's stand on juvenile crime, as the system is structured to develop the idea that crimes, and sometimes even violent ones committed by individuals younger than 18 are not something that should follow and restrict them there entire lives. There is more of a sense of reformation in the juvenile justice system...
In a statement made by Chicago's first juvenile probation officer the context of juvenile justice was explained, to be one that should be formed as a parental guidance rather than punishment system "As the court's first chief probation officer, Timothy Hurley, explained, "Instead of reformation, the thought and idea in the judge's mind should always be formation. No child should be punished for the purpose of making an example of him, and he certainly can not be reformed by punishing him. The parental authority of the State should be exercised instead of the criminal power." 3
Tanenhaus 23) this statement holds true today in that the system is structured around making the juvenile understand the implications of their actions, rather than punishing them for them. Though this is an ideal it is an ideal often utilized for judicial decisions.
Works Cited
Calabresi, Steven G., and Stephanie Dotson Zimdahl. "The
Supreme Court and Foreign Sources of Law: Two Hundred Years of Practice and the Juvenile Death Penalty Decision." William and Mary Law Review 47.3 (2005): 743.
Streib, Victor, L. The Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes January 1, 1973-June 30, 2003. online at http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty/streib/juvdeath.htm. July 1, 2003.
Tanenhaus, David S. Juvenile Justice in the Making. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
