I agree-recent research has documented that the brains of minors is different than that of adults. Risk-taking, lack of "thinking-ahead" and other items are what the court has thankfully considered in making this decision. Just as we don't execute mentally handicapped individuals, likewise, we should consider what research says about those whom are guilty of such crimes, may or may not understand. We were(thankfully I can use past tense here) but a handful of nations around the world that executes juveniles. I'm not certain about other people, but not having the same juvenile penalties as Iran is a good thing IMHO. Amesty International has done a wonderful job of documenting how these laws and standards are changing across the globe today. It's also important to consider what thsoe who work the closest with these kinds of people have to say as well. I would say that the American Bar Association' has done a wonderful job of spelling out why the executing of juveniles is uncosntitutional.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that government derives its authority from the consent of the governed. Scalia doesn’t see it that way. In a speech in 2002, he reminded his audience what it says in the Bible: the government is ordained by God. During arguments in Van Orden v. Perry, Scalia said Jefferson was wrong. Our government doesn’t derive its authority from the consent of the governed. It “derives its authority from God.” And, he insisted, it’s a fact that “the foundation of our laws is God.”

Read all about it:

http://www.misterthorne.org/ESSAYS/scalia_v_jefferson.htm

Enjoy!

If the Supreme Court says it's unconstitutional, then it is. It's up to the court to decide what the Constitution means, and if the court says that executing people who don't have their full wits about them is a form of punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, then that's that. End of story.

Not quite. The ever-so-interesting Antonin Scalia took the opportunity, earlier today, to, once again, publicly ridicule those who disagree with him.

Here's a link to the story:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apw...154&slug=Scalia

The man's stated position is this: If it was constitutional to execute someone for stealing horses 200 years ago, then it’s constitutional now; and the age and mental capacity of the thief are irrelevant. States' rights, and all that.

Call me simple-minded (you won't be the first), but I see it this way: when the court rules that executing children or the mentally retarded or the insane violates the Eighth Amendment, then the matter is settled. It does us no good when a loser gets up and starts whining about it. He had his chance to persuade his colleagues to his way of thinking, and he lost. End of story.

This is an arguement that a child could make.(no offense) That is just the box, look outside of the box and think about what your saying. The supreme court is a (corrupt) government branch that at one time served a great purpose. That time has come and gone. Look at the decision. You say that just because they didn't manage to persuade the rest of the court that this is over? If people thought and worked like that then we might still be segregated, we might still have slavery, women might not be able to vote. It is because people campaign for a change in a previous statement by the court that we have these rights. So you can't tell me that "that is that" because it's not. Someone will fight and someone will get this changed.

Thomas Jefferson:



Despots is not too strong a term to use for the Supreme Court when they twist and shape the Constitution to meet their private political agenda. The Missouri Supreme Court ignored the prior rulings of the USSC maybe it is time that more states do the same on this ruling. Maybe GW could emulate Andrew Jackson here. Something must be done to stop the current unelected oligarchy.

This ruling was in direct conflict with even the current questionable standards of judicial reasoning employed by the majority of our justices today. It is nothing but the ruling of despots who are destroying federalism and reducing our Constitution to a "mere thing of wax".

Let's see if I've got this right. Two parties bring a dispute to court. If the justices rule in favor of one party, they've done their job. If they rule in favor of the other party, they're legislating from the bench.

Is that about right?

I am personally shocked that so many here think it is feasible and probably a good thing that a nation put its children to death by capitol punishment.
A sad testament to this society.

Yes, the courts have decided that children under the age of 18 may make decisions about abortion and gives them the right to make those decisions. The courts also prosecute children as criminals in capitol cases, and hold them responsible for their actions there and may give them life sentances.

In this ruling we are talking about a states right to execute children. We are not talking about not holding them responsible for their actions, we are talking about the barbarity of executing them.

This is much more (bigger) than a States rights issue. This is a national issue of a society that is so out of control that it executes children. Its a society that will not amend its gun laws based on Constitution, that does not hold parents accountable for loose and loaded guns in the home, that condones killing of innocents abroad in the name of freedom, that is so full of violence in every viewable media outlet, then what? Considers children evil and executable when they dont understand the subtleties of the consequences of killing?

Is executing children a deterrant to others? What are you all talking about? Do we need to exact vengence upon our kids? Where does the age limit stop, 16? 13? Or perhaps 10 or 12? Or do we begin looking at the inherant problems which cause our children to kill each other, themselves or adults?

Has this society gone berzerk? Children are not born evil! Something has gone wrong with the adults, which is utterly apparent here.


http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/juveniles.html

Good company. Keeping with our 'human rights pedestal' we were among the last of the most barbaric nations. Not even Saudi Arabia executes juveniles.
What a shining example of civilization to be 'spreading around the world'.

Aren't aggravating and mitigating factors weighed in all sentencing hearings.

I think the same test can be put to all convicted criminals regardless of age. State courts and my elected representatives are capable interpreting the Constitution. Age and mental capacity are mitigators.

Appointed judges who are isolated and detatched from the body of America need not forge law from independent moral opinion. What is acceptable to the citizens of Indiana is not always acceptable to the citizens of California. Let the people rule themselves.

The Supreme Court is eroding state sovereignty. Splitting hairs by defining a persons ability to understand consequence by his or her age is ludicrous. Aren't some 16 year olds more emotionally developed than some 30 year olds? Allow local courts to examine the merits of each case individually.

I don't always agree with Scalia but I think he articulated my opinion much more adequately than I am capable of doing.

Yep, in most cases that is true. One decision is properly constitutional, the other is not. Then of course you have decisions, such as the one that decided the 2000 Presidential election where it was clear all 9 justices were swayed by their partisanship.

There is nothing remotely "despotic" about ending the barbaric practice of executing children.

The Supreme Court doesn't have to be applauded for every decision it makes. But those rulings while they may be disputed or ridiculed, must be obeyed and by ALL 50 states of the United States. They don't get to cherry-pick which Supreme Court rulings they will obey and which they will ignore. You can't have 50 totally autonomous states. That path leads to chaos and anarchy.

If the principles of federalism and the Constitution are mutually exclusive from those of common sense, goodness and mercy, then those principles have no more usefulness and should be disposed of at the same time the U.S. sinks into the morass of anarchy that Hugo is calling for.

What is barbaric is what these kids do to get teh penalty in the first place. It is not like the courts say: " lets fire up a kid for the heck of it." No. These kids kill rape and torture other living, breathing, thinking human beings to eawrn the death penalty. Lee Malvo did horrificly barbaric things; and you suggest that WE are the barbarians for giving him the needle? I think that he deserves much worse than the needle. The things that kids do to earn the death penalty are barbaric and therefore recieve a humane form of death. I think that the needle is quite humane next to the chair or the gas chamber. They kill, they need to be killed. An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth.

Then you should agree with me that the Missouri Supreme Court was contributing to "chaos and anarchy" when they ignored the USSC's ruling in Stanford.

From Louis Brandeis:



Boy, I wish that was still the case.

Good point Hugo But who can tell these days anyway? Hmmm I wonder if the States are even required to follow the Roper mandate? The "evolving standards of decency" that define the 8th amendment may have changed by now.

By that reckoning, whoever executes a kid should be executed.

Seriously, though. Justice Scalia has said that if it was constitutional to execute someone for stealing horses 200 years ago, then it must be constitutional now.

By that reckoning, lethal injection is unconstitutional since it was unheard of 200 years ago.

Ah . . . the logic of it all!

The poor logic is on your part. Lethal injection is a more humane form of putting someone to death than most of the methods employed in 1791. It would be judicial activism to rule it as unconstitutional due to 8th Amendment or any other concerns. There is no reason that the constitution cannot be interpreted to encompass new technologies. Let me explain...lethal injection, not cruel, new device that slowly skins a man alive before amputating his extremities and then killing him, cruel.Use of Lethal injection-constitutional. Use of Man-skinning decapitating machine-unconstitutional.

There is nothing inherently noble for allowing a more merciful punishment based upon an arbitrary time at which the killer exiting the womb, either.

I love how these brutal killers are referred to as "children" as if they are innocent babes being led to the slaughter. Each of these "people" has done things that no one of us would ever tolerate. Each of them had the advantage of the mitigating circumstance of age when they were sentenced.

What this ruling does is take away the deliberation available to a jury and replace it with an arbitrary standard. It replaces the legislative process of deciding what is "cruel and unusual" and replaces it with the arbitrary standard of a panel of judges.

These judges do not sit and deliberate on each capital case on its merits. They do not advocate such freedom to the jury involved. Instead, they impose their viewpoint rather than defer to the judgement of the elected officials in each state (and the subsequent deliberation by the jury regarding the appropriateness of the punishment).

I should point out (as I try to do when talking about the death penalty), that my position on the death penalty is from the standpoint of punishment, not rehabilitation or deterrent for future evil-doers. Each crime deserves punishment, and if a state determines that the death penalty is appropriate for certain crimes, then so be it. The age of the defendant should certainly be a factor in the sentencing, however it should not be the overall determining factor.

A small point - I don't believe that the juries determine the sentence. They don't here in the UK and your system is derived from ours, so I assume it is the same. The judge tells the jury, depending on what facts they find, what the verdict should be in law, and then the jury determines what the facts are, applies them to the law as directed by the judge, and delivers a verdict. The judge then sentences, if guilty. Still, your point that capacity for criminal liability should be decided on a case-by-case basis still stands, only that the decision is for the judge.

The problem with this is that the judge would then be being asked to do what he is not supposed to do - decide on the facts (i.e. whether the accused was mature enough to deserve the full consequences of is actions). Not, conversely, should sentencing be left to the jury.

I think that it is in any case virtually impossible to make a sound judgement over someone's mental capacity, even on a case-by-case basis. The evilness of their actions is a false guide to that - if they do something more despicable then it may show that they are less aware of what they do. A limit at 18 years is a sensible limit, if somewhat arbitrary. It will allow people to live who might, by the laws of the US, otherwise deserve to die, but better that than vice-versa. Moreover, justice is nothing without mercy.

Of course, that all has no bearing on the constitutinality of the death sentence for under-18s, which is a legal question. To that I would only say that it is quite clearly and unusual punishment - very, very few states still allow it. It's the US and Somalia, or something like that. Whether it is also cruel (and it needs to be both cruel and unusual) is not something that can be judged objectively, though I think that it's unusualness (where it was once common) would itself suggest that, by the standards of most of humanity, it is cruel. On the other hand, it might be argued that a painless death is not cruel. It depends on how one should define 'cruel,' and that returns us to subjectivity, in practice.

Here, the question is for the jury. In the U.S., only a jury can impose the death sentence.

Think again. If death by hanging was constitutional 200 years ago, it must be constitutional now. There's nothing in the Constitution that says that executions should be more humane than they were in the past. The Founders didn't write anything about how a person should be rendered unconscious before he/she is executed. Original intent, man: Original intent!

This is the worst and most disheartening debate I have ever seen on this board. It is without a doubt the most cruel, incompassionate, merciless testament to our society that can be seen in the written word. It is an absolutely shameful projection and judgement by adults, unwilling to accept their own faults and the faults of the society they have created, that are willing to execute their own children instead of dealing with societies/adult ills.

When only 5 countries in the world still execute children, and two of them have laws against, leaving only 3, let me ask this: How are the rest , in fact, the entire civilized world, dealing with this problem?

Does it not behoove one to consider that we may be a bit 'sick', barbarous, cruel, insane to execute children?

We could consider that children born in the US are more inherently evil than those in Russia, France, Germany, Spain, Eastern Block, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Africa, South America, Mexico, Canada and all the rest of the world, many who have strict punishments for crimes but do not execute children. But together with Pakistan, China and the DR of the Congo, Iran and of course the US, children are just born evil?- or- something is wrong with our take on matters and society as a whole.

Lets appeal to common sense. Look at the counterparts. Read the links to Amnesty International. Hey, why not go down to your local executioner and watch a 17 year old put to death and see how it makes you feel, Im sure Texas has some room for observers.

I have never been so sickened by a debate as I have this one, not that any of you pro-death would care in the least, or understand how utterly disgusting and merciless your take on this subject is. Spiritually it is without any ethic, I hope none of you call yourselves good Christians, if so, Id like to see your argument.

One wonders, why children are killing each other, or others. When they reflect 'us' and society in their actions, which is what children do-we just think to kill them off?- Better to remove the problem than deal with it, by death?

Think about all the third world nations, poor nations, people who have no hope, children who have no homes, crimes being committed. They are not executing their children. What makes US children so deserving of death sentances? Besides a sick, violence and vengance filled society, which contributes to the problem at its base?

Once again, we are not executing children. The action under debate is the execution of adults who committed capital crimes while legally minors.

Once again, we are not executing children. The action under debate is the execution of adults who committed capital crimes while legally minors.


Once again, we are not executing children. The action under debate is the execution of adults who committed capital crimes while legally minors.

Once again, we are not executing children. The action under debate is the execution of adults who committed capital crimes while legally minors.

The utter failure of most supporters of this decision to honestly represent the issue demonstrates either their complete moral bankruptcy, or absolute inability to grasp concepts more complex than "I feel."

All valid points. But all flawed points. You are basing all of your evidence on on religious and ethical values. To counter your points on ethics the cruelty of said executions; I propose this to you. Are the acts that these children commit not also cruel and evil and deserving of said execution. Although I am not proud of it I think that it's the right thing to do. These kids have blatantly disregarded and thrown aside all common sense and empathy; they were earning their death. We do not just throw the death penalty to a child saying " well these kids are getting to rowdy lets just a fry up a batch". NO! We do this out of neccesity; to rid society of a menace. They were found guilty of particularily heinous and cruel crimes and were given a just punishment.

On the religious aspect. I am a devout lutherean and am finishing my confirmation of faith in October. But I still think that this is what they deserve. Religion and ethics aside; when we look at the evidence this is nothing more than what they deserve.

Fair enough. I'm slightly shocked actually, but if that's how it is then I can't argue with it.



The definition of 'unusual' certainly changes, and arguably the definition of 'cruel' as well. If you really want to stick with original intent then that's fair enough, but I think that flexibility was built into the system quite deliberately. By adding 'unusual' they clearly meant to ensure that the USA remained within the boundaries of what mankind as whole considered acceptable. It's a very clever device, in fact, and it means that the US must move with the times. Such flexibility is the original intent.

There must be joy in repetition. Though taken to excess it can lapse into banality and redundancy.

As a supporter of the court's decision, I guess you're probably talking about someone like me, Bikerdad. I would hope not though. I would have to ask what qualifies you to characterize me as someone in a state of complete moral bankruptcy or charge that I have an absolute inability to grasp concepts more complex than "I feel."

The fact is we are executing children---when they become adults for the capital crimes they committed as legal minors. In a nice Christian country like this it's darned awkward when a child kills and we have to wait until he grows up and out a bit before our blood-lust can be satisfied. This does however spare us the potentially grotesque spectacle of leading a shaven and shackled minor to be strapped to a gurney and injected with a vial of lethal chemicals. It might be even more embarrassing though if the "hot shot" kept slipping out of a too-small vein. That, or and the warden has to start equipping the electric chair with a booster seat and providing a Last Dinner of McDonald's Happy Meals.

Waiting for kid killers to start shaving before whacking them is based on a strong desire to avoid a media circus. Not because some blood-crazed right-wingers don't think it's a good idea to pan-fry the little monsters up quick, fast and in a hurry.

The real moral bankruptcy lies in a society so frightened by its own children and incapable of finding a better way to restrain or correct them, that killing them seems like a practical solution.

It isn't and thank heavens the Supreme Court has ended this abominable practice.

Accepting that fact apparently is a concept that some opponents of the decision have an absolute inability to grasp.

Ohhhh pullleeze...... We are talking about 16 and 17 year monsters here, not little Mary who decides to flush her goldfish down the toilet. What's your next argument going to be Nighttimer? Maybe that poor, misunderstood 16 year old who kills both his parents should be set free because he is after all, an orphan?

Well, since Justice Kennedy and the majority of the Supreme Court has struck down those absurd laws executing juvenile murderers, that's not exactly a problem I have to worry about anymore, now do I, Aquilla?

How precisely does a nation that puts people to death for the crimes they committed as children call itself one that believes in "a culture of life?" If what we're really about is "a culture of payback" let's just call it what it is and be done with all the posturing.

If you want to vent some outrage, here's a travesty of justice that maybe we both can agree on. Sunday a guy and his buddy were heading out to golf in a van. They passed a car with three teenagers and two adults---apparently too close according to police reports, because the driver in the second car got ticked off and chased the van for four miles before getting ahead of it and cutting them off.

One of the adults and the three teens exited the car. The driver of the van got out. Maybe to talk or to try and explain his side of the story. He never got the chance.

The adult from the car stabbed the van driver several times in the chest. He and the juveniles ran back to their car and sped away. The wounded driver tried to drive away in the van, but crashed into a guardrail. His passenger, a cousin, called 911 for help and gave a description of the suspects vehicle. They were arrested shortly, but the driver, a married father of three--two daughters, 7 and 5, and a 2--year-old son---died at the scene.

The suspect collapsed and laid crying on the floor of the courtroom during his initital appearance. He had been released from prison in 2003 after serving 14 years for voluntary manslaughter. In 1987, as a 21-year-old, he had stabbed to death another man in the chest and stomach during a street fight. He had been orignally charged with murder, but convicted of the lesser charge.

Now you tell me how we can put away or get rid of murderous scumbags like this guy, Aquilla and make it stick so they don't get out and make real wives widows and real children orphans and I'll work with you to make it happen. I don't want bad people walking around me either, but nobody's proven to me they can show who's going to turn out bad and who's going to turn it around.

Until they can, though I do support the death penalty for hardcore criminals that kill, I'm not certain we can apply a "one-size-fits all" solutions to such a complicated problem.

I failed to accurately represent the issue because when I read Amnesty International I misread ' executing juvenile offenders' for actually executing juveniles. It was an honest mistake. I am morally bankrupt for that mistake it seems, so arrogantly pointed out.
I read Bikerdads post some time ago and wrote a long response, with facts, figures and theory but I accidentally erased it and had no energy to recompose.

My stance remains the same. If I am morally bankrupt, I stand with 9/10 of the civilized and non-civilized world in the belief that executing juvenile offenders is unacceptable.

It is a complicated issue in a violent and pro-gun culture. We have some inherant problems in the US that lead us to more violent solutions. We cant just keep killing as solution, not people in other countries and our own as well. We have been barbaric in this behavior and the world has proved us so, by being of the last few to do such thing. No longer, as is just. In my opinion, a great Republic, as was originally intended, not a crazed mobocracy.

The SCOTUS' ruling was totally unnecessary. The United States is a state party to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Has been since it was ratified on 08-Sep-1992.
Interestingly, Article 6, section 5 of the Covenant reads:Article VI, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States of America reads:Italics mine.
Whether or not you agree with the SCOTUS' interpretation of the Eighth Amendment is pretty much irrelevant; executing people for crimes committed prior to attaining the age of 18 was already illegal under international treaty.

The U.S. expressly reserved the right under that treaty to continue to impose the death penalty on juvenile offenders in exceptional circumstances:

That's odd; the UNHCHR website lists the reservations to that treaty, and there's nothing listed for the United States. I stand corrected, then.

Edited to add: ah, no, actually it does list it. It's just that the page has a rather cluttered layout so it's easy to miss.

Do you agree with The Supreme Court that the death penalty is unconstitutional when applied to juvenile killers? Why or why not?


Tough subject! I have to say I disagree with the supreme court, and indeed, all the countries that have made the death penalty the thing of the past. I commend places like Europe, however, in needing this type of punishment less, as they have taken care of so many root causes of the reason why a society helps to create and nurture these monsters, or at least address the issues, something America will not do, and for this- Artemise is correct in her anger.

That being said- I work with poeple frequently that deserve the death penalty several times over, and even in jail, will kill if they can. This is one problem with "locking them up for life"- they have nothing to lose by killing others, either when escaping from jail or while in jail.

Those gentle souls on this site that abhore the death penalty in philosophy- I respect them. I respect that they can still attach humanity to these monsters. But I do not think they understand with whom they are dealing with. As my mother in law (a former prosecutor of hienous crimes in Russia) said "sure, they look human, but it is a disguise they use to trick thier prey, do not mistake them for human, because they are not, just very intelligent predatory animals"- and I have to agree.

A John Wayne Gacy or Jeffery Dahmer should never be mistaken for a human being, and no mercy should ever be shown to them.

Now, that being said- I do understand why the supreme court did this- and I think, IMO, that one of the reasons is because the goverment is fallible, and since ALL folks on death row are poor, and almost never have good legal representation, it is only logical that we, as a nation, kill a fair amount of innocent poeple with the death penalty.

It is more than a little disenginous to say that "prove we have killed an innocent" because, quite frankly , the goverment will never allow that chance to occur. There is a case, in West Virginia or Virginia, where I am pretty sure the guy was innocent, they put him to death, but destroyed the DNA evidence after years of legal manuvering to keep the truth from coming out.

It is the very fallible and corruptness of goverment that makes the death penaltly fallible and corrupt, so, untill we are absolutely positive, without a shadow of doubt, as in the case of , say, Jeffery Dahmer, that we should ever execute anyone.

hayleyanne:

I am responding to your post on another thread, which more properly belongs here:

Justice Antonin Schalia, who portrays himself as a strict constructionist, is rather elastic when it comes to reconciling his personal religious beliefs with his judicial opinions. Indeed, reading his dissenting opinion in Roper v. Simmons, one cannot help but wonder that if the vote had gone the other way, he would have had no objection to subscribing to it - and for exactly the same reasons expressed in the majority opinion, which his dissent decried as "counting Amishmen."

On the other hand, the majority was no less adept in judicial gymnastics to bend and stretch the law in this case. The real justification for the court's decision was that the cardinal principle governing the states' juvenile justice systems is that minors are not legally cupable, however henious their criminal offenses. For the court to base its ruling on some nebulous, moralistic consensus, however composed - whether by legislative enactment or judicial fiat - is not just wrongheaded, but intellectually dishonest. In this, the court may have reached the right decision for all the wrong reasons.

To use good means to ends is good; to use bad means leaves the ends unaccountable.

However, that in itself is not an argument against the death penalty, so much as an argument for 'postponing' the death penalty until a (theoretical) state can be achieved where no innocent person is falsely judged as guilty.

Opponents of the death penalty oppose it on more fundamental grounds - and not because we are 'gentle' souls - or sentimentalists, but because the death penalty is barbaric and that society should not sink to such levels, even if individuals within society do. When faced with a choicce between being violent or not being violent, it seems to me that the state should choose the latter.

The fallacy of "putting them in jail" or "postponing judgement" is that there will be no further victims of these monsters.

These guys (and gals), after being jailed for life, let's say without possibility of parole, kill again, rape again, whatever, it is a "freebie" because they can't get more punishment than they already have, right?

Once again, if there is not even a shadow of doubt that the person is guilty, a humane death is the safest for everybody but the monster commiting the crime.

Do you agree with The Supreme Court that the death penalty is unconstitutional when applied to juvenile killers? Why or why not?

Well, if they don't get executed, they will be getting life imprisonment wont they? I think sitting in a cell for 80 years is much worse then going through a few minutes pain. Either way, their criminal careers are over (and I think the point of law enforcement should be to reduce crime, not to punish criminals), because they aren't getting back out on the streets. Consequently, i'm for the lighter punishment: Death.

Now seeing that imprisonment is a worse punishment then death, doesn't that make it crueler then execution? If thats true, can you claim execution is unconstitutional without saying imprisonment is as well? Seeing that following such arguments to their logical ends, leads us to conclusions which would be very detrimental to society, I disagree with the courts ruling.

What a great point LH person. The essential issue is who gets to decide what is cruel and unusual punishment. The Court ignored its own precedent, the democratic will and the constitution itself in rendering this decision. Ultimately, we are ruled by nine unelected men and women in robes.

The Court ignored its own precedent,

They've ruled on a case similar to this before? Also, if courts could never change their own rulings, then segregational laws would still be in place.

the democratic will

I wasn't aware that there was a poll, that found that the majority of America was for giving the death penalty to criminal minors. In addition to this, keep in mind that one of the courts jobs is to protect minoritys* from majority oppression.

and the constitution itself in rendering this decision.

While I decided that I disagreed with the courts ruling, I did so by claiming that pain is worse then death. That is a very arguable stance, and I wouldn't blame anyone for disagreeing with me.

Ultimately, we are ruled by nine unelected men and women in robes.

Rather, ultimately the executive and legislative branches agendas are occasionally undermined by the courts.

Before claiming that we have biased judges though, we need to study many of the cases that have been occurring much more clearly. Though they sometimes they end up stretching things a bit, the courts job is interpret law, yet in many cases the media doesn't even tell us what laws are being interpreted. For example, I have never actually heard of what laws were actually being debated in the Terry Schiavo case. Is it not possible, that it was literal interpretation of the law (rather then liberal bias) that moved the courts to rule the feeding tube could be uninserted?

In conclusion, when you have an somewhat pro-authoritarian government in place, its inevitable that the courts will undermine such a government here or there. After all, the constitution is not an authoritarian document.

*-I mean populational minoritys, not teenagers