" (Potter, 1999)
Supreme Court finally strikes down juvenile executions
On Mar. 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down once and for all juvenile executions in the United States, abandoning nations such as Nigeria, Congo, China, Pakistan and others whose records of human rights abuse are staggering.
The 5-4 decision reverses the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes.
The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment's strict ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling continues the court's practice of narrowing the scope of the death penalty, which justices reinstated in 1976. The court in 1988 outlawed executions for those 15 and younger when they committed their crimes. Three years ago, the Supreme Court justices banned executions of the mentally retarded.
Tuesday's ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible for execution.
The age of 18 is the point where society draws…...
mlaBibliography
Amnesty International. 1998. Juveniles and the Death Penalty: Execution Worldwide Since 1990. November.
Berk, R.; R. Weiss; and J. Boger. 1993. Chance and the Death Penalty. Law and Society Review 27: 89-110.
Bureau of Justice Statistics.1997. Capital Punishment 1996. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Capital Punishment Research Group. 1998.. Report. Headland: AL: Capital Punishment Research Group (January 12).
An interesting and similar development in juvenile justice is the issue of life imprisonment as a cruel and unusual sentence for juvenile offenders. This issue is addressed by Mark herman (2009). herman states that Joe ullivan was 13 years old when he attacked and raped an elderly woman. The court judged him as incorrigible and therefore sentenced him to life without parole. Another example is that of Terrance Graham, who took part in several armed robberies during his 16th and 17th years, also given a life sentence for these crimes. The argument appears not to be against the punishment itself, but its disproportionate nature in terms of the crimes committed and the youth of the offenders. They did not commit murder, but were effectively sentenced to eventually die in prison; the replacement for the juvenile death penalty.
According to the author, data compiled by opponents indicate that only a little more…...
mlaSources
American Bar Association. Juvenile Death Penalty Amicus Briefs. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/184748.pdf
Bradley, Curtis A. (2002, Dec.) The Juvenile Death Penalty and International Law. Duke Law Journal, Vol. 52. Downloaded from Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=348501
Cothern, Lynn. (2000, Nov.). Juveniles and the Death Penalty. Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
death penalty and minors - recent Supreme Court finding
Death Penalty was extensively applied in the olden times across the world. The modern crusade for banning of capital punishment started in the 18th century with the writings of Montesquieu and also Voltaire. Some of the nations which took a lead in abolishing capital punishment are Venezuela in 1863, San Marino in 1865 and Costa ica in 1877. Presently, more than 50% of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty either by way of legal enactment or practice. The U.S. Supreme Court quashed state death penalty laws. But again in 1976, the Court restored the death penalty following the espousal of new procedures. Since 1982 till 1999, 250 to 350 persons were sentenced to death every year, however, in the last three years; the number of death sentences has come down remarkably. Among the 50 states, 13 states…...
mlaReferences
"Death Penalty" News Batch. (March, 2005) Accessed on 16 May, 2005http://www.newsbatch.com/deathpenalty.htm
"Emerging National Consensus on the Juvenile Death Penalty." (1 March, 2005) scid=27 Accessed on 16 May, 2005http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=205& ;
Lobe, Jim (10 March, 2005) "Supreme Court bans death penalty for minors." Accessed on 16 May, 2005http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1842.shtml
'Roper v. Simmons, No. 03-633: DPIC Summary." Retrieved from did=885 Accessed on 16 May, 2005http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=38& ;
Death Penalty
Evolution of the Death Penalty in Supreme Court Jurisprudence
Capital punishment has been in existence for centuries. As early back as the Eighteenth Century B.C., the use of the death penalty was found in the Code of King Hammurabi (Death Penalty Information Center [DPIC], 2010). The utilization of the death penalty for designated crimes continued through the years and became incorporated in Britain's penal system (DPIC, 2010). Britain's use of capital punishment carried over into colonial America (DPIC, 2010). Since that time, the death penalty has been a part of the American criminal justice system. However, its use has not been without strong opposition. This paper explores the Supreme Court cases exploring this controversial topic and discusses the evolution of jurisprudence on the subject matter.
Much of the legal support or opposition for the use of the death penalty has been at the state level. Where the death penalty has been…...
mlaReferences
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002).
Death Penalty Information Center. (2010). Part I: History of the Death Penalty. Retrieved November 17, 2010, from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-death-penalty
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
However, the reasons why people commit crime are as different as the individuals themselves. Intentional murder comes in two different flavors. The first is the carefully plotted, well thought out, planned act. In this scenario, motivational theory takes over. The person must feel that they will gain some type of value from the action. It may be that they gain something, such as money, or they may feel that eliminating a person will offer them some type of protection. In any case, the person justifies their actions through a perceived reward in the future (Horisch and Strassmair).
In the case of an intentional murder, the death penalty may deter the action. However, several conditions must be met for the fear of death to act as a deterrent. The person must feel that there is a significant possibility that they will be caught and punished for their crimes. In many cases,…...
mlaReferences
Amnesty International. Death Penalty. 2008. www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/page.do?id=1011005).
Death Penalty Information Center. Facts About the Death Penalty. March 1, 2009. (Accessed March 10, 2009). (Gumbel, a. The Innocence Project: Guilty Until Proven Innocent. Common Dreams My 4, 2006). http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0504-09.htm (Accessed March 10, 2009).http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf
Horisch, H. And Strassmair, C. An experimental test of the deterrence hypothesis. Discussion Papers in Economics. February 27, 2008. University of Munich. (Accessed March 10, 2009).http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/2139/2/crime_Munich_DP.pdf
Radelet, M., Bedau, H., and Putnam, C. In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992, and Bedau and Radelet, "Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases." Stanford Law Review 40 (1987): 21-179)
Capital Punishment: Does it Reduce Crime?
Capital Punishment is a social controversy that epitomizes the axiom "an eye for an eye."
In the United States there are 38 states that utilize the death penalty, and usually for select crimes, including treason, and mass murder. In 2002, 71 inmates were executed, which was 5 more than 2001, and of these 71 inmates, 53 were Caucasian, and 69 were male (Capital Punishment Statistics, 2003).
Capital Punishment has been in effect since the 1970s, despite cases and controversy that it goes against a person's 8th Amendment rights. Nevertheless, there has been changes in Capital Punishment laws and "in 2002 the Court barred the execution of mentally retarded offenders, overturning its 1989 ruling on the matter. In the same year the Court ruled that the death penalty must be imposed through a finding of a jury and not a judge" (Columbia, 2003). In 2002, lethal injection accounted…...
mlaBibliography
Capital Punishment Statistics
Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2003.
Printable copy at: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm
Study # 3667: Capital Punishment in the United States 1973-2000
Statistics show that black murderers are far more likely than white murderers to get the death penalty, especially if the victim was white. Blacks make up 12% of the population but 40% of the population on death row, as noted. Georgia can serve as a case in point. Statistics show that a black man accused of killing a white person in Georgia is substantially more likely to receive the death penalty than a white person convicted of killing either a white or a black, and forty-six percent of the inmates on Georgia's death row are black, with most on death row for killing a white person. The situation is much the same in the 35 other states that have capital punishment. In Maryland, blacks make up nearly 90% of the prisoners on death row; in Illinois, 63%; and in Pennsylvania, 60%. The disparity nationwide is even greater when the…...
mlaReferences
Aguirre, a., Jr., & Baker, D.V. (1991). Race, racism, and the death penalty in the United States. Berrien Springs, Michigan: Vande Vere Publishing.
Amnesty International (1999).. Killing with prejudice: race and the death penalty. Amnesty International, Pub. No. AMR 51/52/99. London: Amnesty International.
Baldus, D.C., Woodworth, Q., & Pulaski, C.A., Jr. (1990). Equal justice and the death penalty: A legal and empirical analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Baldus, D.C., Woodworth, G., Zuckerman, D., Weiner, N.A., & Broffitt, B. (1998). Racial discrimination and the death penalty in the post-Furman era: An empirical and legal overview, with recent findings from Philadelphia. Cornell Law Review 83:1638-770
The research shown to the Supreme Court suggests just the opposite about them (Liptak, 2005).
Third, evidence shows that many teens in jail for serious crimes have significant mental health problems. Representative Henry Waxman (D) of California noted that in his state, one of the most populous in the country, there is little competent psychiatric help for youthful offenders who are incarcerated. He and his staff found that hundreds of teens held in California services were not getting the mental health services they desperately needed (Author not stated, 2005). 70% made suicide attempts while incarcerated, and nearly 75% attacked others (Author not stated, 2005). In spite of such clear evidence of instability, nearly six out of ten California facilities lacked staff with mental health training. Youthful offenders, meanwhile, had a wide range of diagnoses including not only substance abuse but AD/HD, retardation and learning disabilities (Author not stated, 2005). These…...
mlaBibliography
Author not stated. 2005. "Mentally ill California youth await treatment in detention." Child Protection Law Report, Feb. 11.
Liptak, Adam. 2005. "Too young to die?" New York Times, Feb. 14.
Yen, Hope. 2005. "Supreme Court strikes down death penalty for juveniles." AP Worldstream, March 1.
Through which he concluded that each execution prevents around seven or eight people from committing murder (Worsnop 402). In 1985, an economist from the University of North Carolina by the name of Stephen K. Layson published a report that showed that every execution of a murderer deterred eighteen would be murderers (Guernsey 68). While the numbers from these studies seem quite low as compared to the large number of murders committed every day in the United States, the numbers become quite large when discussed in the terms of every year executions. (Guernsey 65)
The opponents of capital punishment here give different points which are also quite true. According to the critics of capital punishment many of the people who commit acts of murder are either retarded or are immature. Capital punishment doesn't have an effect on the youth and immature people. As Richard L. Worsnop writes in his article entitled…...
mlaBibliography
Worsnop, Richard L. Death Penalty Debate Centers on Retribution. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1990.
Guernsey, JoAnn Bren. Should We Have Capital Punishment? Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co, 1993.
Van den Haag, Ernest, and John Phillips Conrad. The Death Penalty a Debate. New York: Plenum Press, 1983.
Maestro, Marcello T. A Pioneer for the Abolition of Capital Punishment Cesare Beccaria. [New York]: Journal of the History of Ideas, 1973.
It appears that they were not aware of the situation with illiams when it came to the mental illness and the child abuse, but it is also possible that they kept silent about the issue against an attorney that they knew to be incompetent in order to get a conviction. Speculation is all that is available on that issue where the prosecution is concerned since accounts of what happened to Alexander illiams do not indicate whether the prosecution had knowledge of the mental health problems that illiams had and/or the abusive home that he came from.
THE ATTORNEY'S INVESTIGATION
Perhaps this section should be more appropriately called 'the attorney's lack of investigation,' as that is largely what took place. There were many mitigating circumstances that surrounded Alexander illiams and the murder that he committed, but the incompetent attorney that was assigned to him failed to investigate any of them (Juvenile, 2002).…...
mlaWORKS CITED
Death penalty and people with mental illness. (2005). National Mental Health Association. Retrieved 24 February 2005 from / juvcasestudy.cfmhttp://www.nmha.org/position/deathpenalty
Executing Alexander Williams (2002, February 19). Chicago Tribune. CrimeLynx. Retrieved 24 February 2005 from http://www.crimelynx.com/alexw.html
Georgia Moratorium Campaign. (n.d.) Alexander Williams: A case for moratorium. Retrieved 24 February 2005 from http://www.georgiamoratorium.org/alexwilliams.html
Juvenile death penalty Alex Williams (2002). American Bar Association, reprinted with permission from Amnesty International. Retrieved 24 February 2005 from abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/williamsua02.htmlhttp://www.
adults have an episode or two from their youth of which they are not extremely proud. Perhaps it involved sneaking a beer (or several beers) at a social function, or lying about one's plans for the evening to get permission to attend a questionable event. Most kids have learned the hard way on at least a few experiences -- speeding, missing curfew, or cheating on a test. Younger children are taught that taking a pack of gum from the store without paying for it is wrong, and that there are certain words on television that they shouldn't repeat in school. e accept these facts of life fairly easily; minors aren't mentally or socially equipped to know how they should behave all of the time. Children have to be taught about social mores, and teenagers test authority without considering the consequences in a way that most adults would. Lawbreaking --…...
mlaWorks Cited
Primary
Atkins v. Virginia, 2004, 536 U.S. 304
Case 12-285, Inter-American Court on Human Rights Rep. No 3/87 (1987)
Domingues v. State, 961 P. 2d 1279,1280, Nev. 1989
Capital Punishment in Texas
Khalil, Samy. "Doing the impossible: Appellate reweighing of harm and mitigation in capital cases after Williams v. Taylor, with a special focus on Texas." Texas Law Review, 80(1): November 2001. Proquest Database.
In this article, Khalil examines how state and federal courts have overturned death sentences, from a period covering the reinstitution of the death penalty in 1976 to 2001. The author focuses on sentences that have been upset due to the failure of defense lawyers to both investigate and present mitigating evidence during trial. The author makes a strong argument by referring to Williams v. Taylor, which argues that appellate courts cannot be expected to reweigh harm and mitigation when attorneys present adequate defense representation. In the case of Texas, the author rightly observes that appellate courts would have difficulty reviewing all capital cases arising from Texas, since even fact-finders in Texas are not required by law…...
mlaOwens, Virginia Stem and Owens, David Clinton. Living Next Door to the Death House. New York: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003.
In this book, the authors present the effects of executions in the town of Huntsville, Texas, known as "the death penalty capital of the United States." While other accounts focus on the victims or the offenders, Owens and Owens conduct in-depth interviews with prison guards, wardens, chaplains and other people who are involved in executions, many of which are Huntsville residents. Particularly affecting are the interviews with the technicians who directly administer the lethal injections to the inmates who are executed.
These interviews show that many of the people whose lives are directly affected by the death penalty system have conflicted feelings regarding capital punishment. This honestly written book presents a balanced account regarding a community's views regarding the death penalty. The fact that the community in question is directly involved
Death Penalty
In the city of New Orleans, murder is an epidemic; one cannot watch a local news program or read a newspaper without hearing of another murder. The deaths and their attendant toll on families and loved ones are devastating, but the impact is not limited to the victims. Instead, this epidemic of murder impacts the entire community; the murders demonstrate a lack of respect for the value of human life, as well as a callous disregard for the rule of law. The justice system appears to be broken, and it appears that people commit murder without considering the morality of their actions or feeling the real-life consequences to them if they are caught. The disregard for the law can be understood when placed in context; even murderers who are caught, prosecuted, and convicted of their crimes tend to serve marginal sentences before being returned to the community to…...
mlaWorks Cited
Blecker, Robert. "The Death Penalty as Delineated by the Old Testament (Cover Story)." USA
Today Magazine 133.2714 (2004), 56-61. Academic Search Complete. 1-9. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Blecker, Robert. "With Death Penalty, Let Punishment Truly Fit the Crime." 22 Aug. 2013.
CNN.com. N.p. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Death Penalty
There are many situations and concerns in the world that require using ethical thought. There are many issues we read about an learn about when we have to ask ourselves what we believe in. hich side do we take on euthanasia or abortion or sexual morays? It is the responsibility of all people to explore these issues so that their opinions are education and well-informed. It is the lazy individual who formulates their opinions on innuendo and rumor. hat is ethical? hat is moral? hat is right? hat is good? It is everyone's responsibility to ask themselves these questions and formulate their own answers to these extremely important issues. Perhaps one of the most controversial topics for debate is over the ethical right of the death penalty. Some feel the penalty to too severe and inhumane. Others feel the penalty is just and not used often enough. How…...
mlaWorks Cited:
Axtman, Kris. "Judicial Rarity: Death Penalty in a Rape Case." The Christian Science Monitor.
"Facts About the Death Penalty" (2011). Retried from www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
MacKinnion, Barbara (2007). Ethics. Thomas Wadsworth.
"Roper v. Simmons." (2005). Supreme Court of the United States.
A philosopher looking at this article would likely believe that the author was using consequentialist arguments, because the author appears to feel that the action that must be taken is one that would make everything better. This betterment would be the 'consequence' of not allowing capital punishment for anyone that was under 18 when his or her crime was committed. The article is really very persuasive in that it makes the U.S. look bad and shows that there can be mistakes made when someone is executed and DNA and other evidence later may show that the person was actually innocent of the crime. However, those that believe strongly in justice will not want capital punishment abolished, no matter what the age of the criminal.
ibliography
Schetky, Diane H., MD. (2001). Juveniles and the death penalty. American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. AAPL Newsletter, 26(3), 9-10. Retrieved May 27,…...
mlaBibliography
Schetky, Diane H., MD. (2001). Juveniles and the death penalty. American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. AAPL Newsletter, 26(3), 9-10. Retrieved May 27, 2006, at http://www.emory.edu/AAPL/newsletter/N263_Juveniles_death_penalty.htm
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