Joanna Schroeder wonders whether minors should be protected from receiving life sentences without parole, regardless of the crimes they commit.
CNN reports on the ruling by the Supreme Court that youths who committed murder when they were minors should be eligible for parole at some point in their lives, even if the crimes they commit may normally merit life sentences without parole.
The SCOTUS has been ruling on the legality of sentencing juveniles as adults for some time now. CNN explains the history:
The high court in 2005 banned the death penalty for those under 18 who commit aggravated murder. Then, five years later, the justices said juveniles found guilty of non-homicides could not receive life without parole.
Now attention has been turned to minors who committed murder. Specifically the cases of two men who were 14 years old each when their (separate) crimes occurred. The crimes were heinous and brutal, and yet the justices ruled 5-4 that as they grew into men, they should be offered the opportunity to prove they’ve reformed.
Justice Elena Kagan explains the legality of the court’s decision:
“The mandatory sentencing schemes before us violate this principle of proportionality, and so violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment,” Kagan said.
What do you think? Should minors who commit murder be allowed parole, or should they be sentenced as if they were adults?
How do we determine who should be tried as an adult? Should a 14 year-old who is the lookout guy in a convenience store robbery/murder be tried and held responsible to the same degree as a 14 year-old who beats a man and then lights his house on fire to kill him?
What if either of those boys had been 17 years old instead of 14? How does that change things?
Image of detainee in handcuffs courtesy of Shutterstock
I agree that the category of juvenile should be a mitigating circumstance in criminal sentencing, and that the ability to change and reform is huge within this category. I made a statement a while back, on a different thread that I believe juveniles are mentally incompetent, meaning that they are not matured emotionally; their judgment capabilities are not fully developed, and in general, are more prone to impulse behavior. We’ve all been there and we know this to be factual – a fragile development state that can be aggravated beyond a tipping point by circumstances, support systems, peer pressures etc… Read more »
I’ll take it another step further. I don’t think minors who commit crimes should ever be tried as adults. We are willing to punish young people like we would an adult, yet how often are we willing to give a minor the rights and privileges of an adult?
This has always been a big contradiction for me.
No.
You don’t have to be a genius to not murder somebody.
If somebody is 14 or 15 years old and he committed a brutal murder, he should remain behind bars forever.