Stop killing kids who kill kids, Court says
The Supreme Court has ruled that executing people who commit crimes as minors is cruel and unusual.
Anthony Kennedy again invokes international norms in his opinion.
Antonin Scalia basically accuses him of treason. Someone should tell
Scalia that being on a plane with Saudi Arabia is not a good thing, and
this isn't 1789 anymore. International standards do matter.
That doesn't mean I agree with the opinion. This means that Domenic
Coia will now live. I had been looking forward to seeing that guy fry.
If you are unfamiliar with the case you can find details here.
The kid who died lived 2 blocks away from my old place. Perfect example
of why these things should be left to the states and decided
case-by-case. If old Dom had waited 6 months to mastermind the
merciless slaying of an innocent person, he all of a sudden is beholden
to his actions? Give me a break. 18 is a completely arbitrary standard.
Some people are mature, physically and emotionally, long before they
are 18. Others are 27 and still act like 12 year olds (I'm thinking
about a certain Fraggle I know) Pretending that all cases like this are
the same is not only stupid, it's irresponsible.
Jalalablog 
LogJammin said,
March 3, 2005 at 4:22 am
of course, this almost beckons a discussion on the whole idea of the death penalty as a means of punishment. while i have been a proponent of the “DP” in the past, especially in extremely hideous cases such as the aforementioned, i have been feeling more and more that maybe a lifetime behind bars in a federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison might be sufficient in and of itself. granted, life in prison is expensive for the taxpayers. and granted, some dirtbags aren’t worth the price of electricity used to fry them. however, a quick death for the timothy mcveighs, domenic coias, and ted bundys of the world just doesn’t seem to provide a well-rounded sense of justice. unless we make the death penalty more Hammurabi-ish–more eye-for-an-eye-ish–there seems to be more intuitive justice in letting these scumbags spend 30, 40, 80 years behind bars with other scumbags who could probably do the types of things tastefully imagined in American Me. don’t kill ’em and let God sort them out…let them kill themselves. as for the case by case scenario JB mentioned, even Fraggles should be held accountable, regardless of age and maturity level. i’ll be running on the Green Party ticket in ’08.
corthar said,
March 3, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Personally, I’m pleased to hear of this decision. The high court, along with the current administration, has been moving more and more conservative in their judgements (for obvious reasons). Fine. But I hate hypocrites. If the whole “right to life” shit is going to be chanted like a mantra, at least they are consistent. How is frying an already formed child supposed to be more ethical than aborting a fetus?
JB said,
March 3, 2005 at 6:26 pm
The problem with life in prison is that if the inmate has no chance of getting out, why not knock off a prison guard or two? There are people out there who are beyond rehabilitation. But I agree with you in theory. In theory, communism works. Before this, under Pennsylvania law only defendants 16 and over were eligible for execution. I wouldn’t call a 16 year old a “child.” Besides, after all the appeals he would be well into his 20s before they pulled the switch. Ironically it was the liberal justices who wrote for the majority; the conservative view is that fetuses are innocent, but murderers deserve to die.
LogJammin said,
March 3, 2005 at 11:06 pm
i, too, agree that an arbitrary age limit is absurd.parents need to be held more accountable for the actions of their offspring. with the latest advancements in gene mapping, it really is only a matter of time before scientists can identify the “problem children” while they’re still in the womb. genetic testing for these deficiencies should be mandatory. any parent who refuses to have a troubled-fetus promptly aborted upon detection should then be held accountable for any future actions of that person. if the fetus commits a crime one day, the parents should serve the time. of course, this isn’t a viable solution for all the test-tube babies we’ll be seeing in the next 20 years. but those children will be genetically flawless and incapable of hurting a real person anyway. focus on the real problems, i say.
JB said,
March 4, 2005 at 9:09 am
You got my vote.
jones said,
March 4, 2005 at 4:09 pm
did you see some of the testimony from the chick? fucking chilling. if drugs were legal we’d have many fewer inmates to spend money on plus the tax dollars from legalized drug sales to spend on lifer inmates. and rehab programs. good point on the hypocrisy of pro-life and the death penalty. couldn’t you go even further, though, and argue that the fact that it is illegal for an individual to kill someone but legal for the state to kill someone that has killed someone is hypocrisy? if killing is wrong, shouldn’t it be wrong regardless of who’s doing the killing and the cause?
corthar said,
March 4, 2005 at 5:33 pm
killing is fine as long as you have god on your side. and dem merderers ain’t got the lord in der heart, dey gots da devil. It all boils down to religion, really. The origin of hypocrisy.
JB said,
March 4, 2005 at 7:46 pm
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/11046105.htmThis article has the little honey’s picture. Makes me shudder just to look at her. Some day I’ll figure out how to embed that into a link. “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” says a bumper sticker. Jack McCoy could give you a nice speech on preventing retribution and providing “revenge” through the arm of the state.
corthar said,
March 4, 2005 at 8:43 pm
you know, i just logged on the philly site and read those articles.all four of those kids are sick. they all are beyond repair, just the fact that they could stomach witnessing the incident shows how fucked up they are.but what i continually find disgusting with our legal system is that a girl and her cunt are always to blame for everything. that girl lured them, she taunted them, she manipulated them and made them do it. all for her cunt. please.fuck, she was in the 8th grade. those boys were almost 18.Whatever….
JB said,
March 7, 2005 at 3:20 am
They are only saying that because they have no other defense. No way a jury buys that.By the way, we here at Jalalablog object to the use of such blunt language. In the future, instead of “cunt” you might consider a less abrasive term, such as “the vertical smile” or “honeypot.”
corthar said,
March 7, 2005 at 5:21 pm
“By the way, we here at Jalalablog object to the use of such blunt language.”pussys.