How do you think this Supreme Court ruling be decided next time it comes up?

http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2005/Mar/02-169502.html

U.S. Supreme Court Ends Death Penalty for Juveniles

Divided court overturns sentences in 19 states

By Susan Ellis
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- A closely divided Supreme Court ruled March 1 that the death penalty cannot be imposed on youthful murderers who were not yet 18 years of age at the time they committed the crimes, ending a practice used in 19 of the U.S. states.

Such executions are a disproportionate punishment for juveniles, whom society views as categorically less culpable than adult criminals, the court said, and violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment contained in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The 5-to-4 decision throws out the current death sentences of 72 juvenile murderers and bars states in the future from seeking to execute minors for crimes. The court had already outlawed executions for offenders who had committed their crimes while still under the age of 16 in 1988.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, acknowledged the weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, which rests, he said, "in large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime."

“Neither retribution nor deterrence provides adequate justification for imposing the death penalty on juvenile offenders,” he said.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer joined Kennedy in the March 1 decision.

In a dissent that highlighted the federal versus states’ rights aspects of the Constitution, Justice Antonin Scalia chastised his colleagues for taking power from the states.

“The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: 'In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty,'" he wrote. "The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards."

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in his dissent.

In his 25-page opinion, Kennedy noted that until now the United States was the only country in the world that still gave official sanction to the juvenile death penalty, where 19 of the world's 39 executions of youthful offenders have been carried out since 1990. The other countries that carried out such executions were Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Using the death penalty against offenders who were under 18 when they committed a crime is banned by the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 192 countries -- every country in the world except the United States and Somalia.

“The fact that the United States has now ended {execution of juveniles} by this ruling is a huge step toward global abolition for the death penalty for children,” said Amnesty International researcher Rob Freer.

In Atlanta, former President Jimmy Carter said, "This ruling acknowledges the profound inconsistency in prohibiting those under 18 years of age from voting, serving in the military, or buying cigarettes, while allowing them to be sentenced to the ultimate punishment."


Created: 01 Mar 2005 Updated: 01 Mar 2005

If it comes up tomorrow, why wouldn't the decision be the same. Is there some reason to believe that Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy or Breyer now feel differently? They're all still on the court.

If it comes up after one or more of them has left the court, the issue will be decided in effect by their successor and at this point it would be complete speculation since we don't even know who would be naming their successor let alone who that successor might be.