Thanks to the four liberal justices and Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court has just given us another example of the court legislating law instead of interpreting the law.
Although there are only 129 juveniles serving life sentences in the U.S., with 77 of them in Florida, the court ruled that the states cannot sentence a juvenile to life in prison when he did not kill anyone. This case involved a Florida youth who, when he was 16 and 17-years-old, committed a string of beatings, armed robberies, home invasions, burglaries, probation violations and other crimes. While he may not have killed anyone, he was a murderer waiting to happen.
A lot has changed over the years since our juvenile laws were originally enacted. Children were deemed delinquents in need of supervision who were mischievous by shooting out windows or street lights with bb-guns, who were petty thieves and shoplifters, who hung around on the streets all hours of the night and who were truants or run-aways.
Many of today’s juveniles are vicious malicious gun-toting thugs who murder, rape, burglarize and commit armed robberies without regard to their victims. These juveniles are out-and-out dangerous criminals, not the wayward children or delinquent youths our juvenile laws were originally designed for.
The liberal justices and Kennedy did not have the good sense to recognize that some of our "juveniles" are not wayward children but simply incorrigible sociopaths who, for the sake of the public's welfare, should never again see the light of day outside the prison walls. By its ruling, SCOTUS has placed the public at risk.
COURT LIMITS HARSH TERMS FOR YOUTHS
By Joan Biskupic and Martha T. Moore
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole for crimes other than murder, in a significant 5-4 decision that says imposing such sentences violates the Constitution's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment.
The court's 5-4 decision — which says that an automatic life sentence for a young offender who has not committed murder violates the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment — wipes out laws in 37 states.
It means that the 129 juveniles now serving time under such laws will, at some point, have an opportunity to make a case for parole.
Most significantly, the decision — signed by the nine-member court's four more liberal justices and Anthony Kennedy, the conservative who votes with the liberals the most — emphasizes that young criminals are different from adults. And not just when it comes to the death penalty, which the court made off-limits for juveniles in 2005.
"A life without parole sentence improperly denies the juvenile offender a chance to demonstrate growth and maturity," Kennedy wrote for the majority in the decision that found life without parole disproportionally harsh.
The decision immediately generated debate over where the court would go in the future regarding juvenile rights, including the possibility that it could strike down life-without-parole for juvenile murderers.
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