Child Death Penalty: Roper and Originalism

I agree that juveniles should not be executed (but I think no one should be executed). Is it Cruel and Unusual? I think so, but the Court had already determined that it was not. My problem with this decision therefore is its effect on Stare Decisis and precedent.Generally, the Court's interpretation role of the Constitution should be limited to cases of first impression, and subsequent cases should merely refine within that framework. Had the Court decided 15 years ago that it was Unconstitutional, I would wholeheartedly agree that was a proper ruling within its role of interpreter. It is the evolving meaning of the words (to mean the "standards of the time") that I question.

Admittedly, some truly wrong decisions like Plessy should be overturned. But Plessy itself relied on the "standards of the time," at least to some degree.

So far, then, as a conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, the case reduces itself to the question whether the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and, with respect to this, there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature. In determining the question of reasonableness, it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort and the preservation of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances [p551] is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the Fourteenth Amendment than the acts of Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of state legislatures.

This in my mind is why the evolving standard is dangerous. It allows the public whim to delineate rights, and while generally that standard has always been in the direction of more rights (unless you are yet to be born), it means that there is no bedrock of the Constitution that we can rely on to be there short of amendment.If the public at large wanted to curtail the freedom of speech (like a Patriot Act on steroids) and the legislatures of a majority of states passed legislation to that effect, should the right to speech be malleable to that sentiment, or should it be protected by the need to amend the Constitution because previous Supreme Court Decisions determined that the 1st amendment applies to the states (through the 14th), and set a "Clear and Present" danger standard?

The Constitution should provide a minimum standard (based on the interpretation at first impression)that to be raised requires an amendment. The States are free to raise the standard for its citizens.