Tuesday, March 01, 2005

You Must Be This Tall To Be Executed

The U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles, declaring unconstitutional the death penalty for those under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.

Fun fact: up until this ruling, the US was the only country to sanction such executions.

Sidenote: the 5-4 ruling cited the "overwhelming weight of international opinion," a basis with which, predictably, Justice Scalia disagreed. While CNB sure doesn't buy into the mental gymnastics of originalism favored by Justice Scalia, he does raise an interesting point (he actually comes closer to ridiculing, but whatever) that asks why interpretation of the US Constitution should be affected by the opinions of other countries.