58)."
It is interesting to note that this decision by the Supreme Court concerning the death penalty and individuals under the age of 18 would be consistent with the public opinion today that would find outrageous taking the life of a teenager. In this matter, the Court takes away the right of the state to decide the punishment, saying that the language of the Eighth Amendment as decided by the Court in the case cited above applies to young people who have erred in a horribly bad way, but should not be subjected to death.
Conclusion
It is the Supreme Court that is the final interpretation of the Constitution. To date, it holds that death by lethal injection is not contrary to the language of the Eighth Amendment, and that it rests with the states to impose or not to impose the death penalty. However, the court makes a distinction as to young offenders, whose crimes as adults might result in the imposition of the death by lethal injection penalty. This suggests that the Supreme Court holds out the punishment of adolescents as cruel and unusual when considering a punishment by death, lethal injection or otherwise. It does not hold out the same level of repulsion when considering women faced with the death penalty (O'Shea, 1999). The Supreme Court has not acted against executing women as it has with adolescents.
There are many arguments, pros and con, surrounding the death penalty, and as far as the history of penalties goes, perhaps death by lethal injection is the most humane way in which to institutionally destroy a human being. Finally, just because the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the states as concerns the death penalty and lethal injections, does mean that the individual justices all concur or do not have thoughts above and beyond the legalese.
The calculated killing of...
The vilest
murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of
human dignity (O'Shea, 1999, p. 1)."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan
As a
society we might find death by lethal injection legal, but that does not mean that we find it morally comprehensible.
References
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5011221625
Adelman, S.E. (2005, August). Supreme Court Bans Death Penalty for Under-18 Offenders. Corrections Today, 67, 58+. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5011221625
Bedau, H.A. & Cassell, P.G. (Eds.). (2004). Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have
Capital Punishment? The Experts on Both Sides Make Their Best Case. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103178745
Brennan, J.J. (2004). The Supreme Court's Excessive Deference to Legislative Bodies under Eighth Amendment Sentencing Review. Journal of
Criminal Law and
Criminology, 94(3), 551+. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5006159038
Cornell University Law School (2008),
United States Constitution, 2008, found online at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmentviii, retrieved 16 March 2008
Justice Learning (2008), found online at: http://www.justicelearning.org/justice_timeline/
Amendments.aspx?id=8,retrieved 17 March 2008 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24431885
O'Shea, K.A. (1999). Women and the Death Penalty in the United States, 1900-1998. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24431885
