Gang Banger Youth Murderer Full Employment Act

"Court Halts Juvenile Executions" That was the headline on AOL this afternoon following the latest fiasco from the Supreme Court, and that headline is misleading. Do you know of ANY juveniles who have been executed? No. Why not? Because the lengthy death penalty process in this country guarantees that people who have been sentenced to death because of crimes committed while under 18 years of age won't meet the Grim Reaper until they're in their 30's.

This headline came about because of the Supreme's decision to outlaw executions of persons who were convicted of heinous crimes committed while under 18. The decision instantly struck down the laws in 20 states, laws that were duly enacted by the state legislatures.

Stop and think about this. What if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had survived their well planned massacre at Columbine High School in 1999? By now they would have been sentenced to a well-deserved death, and the decision today would have commuted that sentence.

The fact is, youths under 18 are often some of the most vicious killers precisely because they think they can get away with it. This decision today will guarantee that every youth gang out there who wishes to take revenge on a rival will appoint their youngest members to do the deed. With the promise from the goverment that they cannot get the death penalty, young gang members will be more inclined to act out their violent urges.

Once again we slip further from being a representative republic to being a judicial dictatorship where a handful of unelected lawyers decide what is moral and what is not, and use as their rational foreign courts, unratified treaties, and anything else EXCEPT the Constitution to support their positions. The Supreme Court is starting to become America's version of Iran's Mad Mullahs. Instead of a vote of the people and their representatives, we now rule the country with a vote of only nine.

I think Antonin Scalia said it best in his dissent (hat tip Hugh Hewitt):

"The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards--and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent."

I join that dissent. This is also exactly what Mark Levin was warning us about in his book: