August 31, 2007

OK, You Can Mess a Little with Texas

by PG

Despite Rick Perry's Instapundit-highlighted bravado in the face of EU criticism, the Texas governor ultimately decided to commute the death sentence of a getaway driver who committed neither robbery nor murder directly.

The Times did flub its SCOTUS reporting: "In 2005, after the United States Supreme Court halted the execution of juveniles, [Gov. Perry] commuted the death sentences of 28 17-year-olds." Even in Texas, we don't have that many teenagers on death row. Rather, as would be implied by the actual ruling that execution for crimes committed as a juvenile was unconstitutional, the 28 inmates had committed their crimes at 17 (people for crimes committed when 16 or younger already were not death penalty eligible in Texas).

UPDATE: Given the apparent consensus of the child development community in Roper that the brains of people under 18 were in flux to the point that it would be wrong to hold them fatally responsible for their actions, I'm surprised to see all the experts called out in support of giving under-18s the vote.

August 31, 2007 09:36 PM | TrackBack
Comments
Post a comment









Remember personal info?






Sitting in Review
Armen (e-mail) #
PG (e-mail) #
Dave (e-mail) #
Craig (e-mail) #
About Us
Senior Status
Chris Geidner #
Jeremy Blachman #
Nick Morgan #
Wings & Vodka #
Recent Opinions
Symposia
Persuasive Authority
De Novo Reporter
Research


Powered by
Movable Type 3.2