Did the Supreme Court Set a New Bright Line Standard in Roper?
Did the Court create a bright line test in Roper, or analyze the law and find it in the text of the Constitution and laws of the states? Is there a difference?
Bright Line rules, such as "murderers under 18 can't be executed, but over 18 can be executed," are functions in law that reduce the necessary analysis to a level that the verdict can be made by a spreadsheet. One of the main functions of a trial is to take the individual case evidence and defendants and analyze them. Most judges hate having the ability to rule on the specific evidence and defendant in the case restricted (and therefore hate minimum sentencing guidelines). I don't think the Court is claiming that it is incapable of this function with the Roper ruling instituting a new Bright Line test. Courts and judges thrive on parsing evidence and passing judgement tailored to the case. A legislature can't do that when devising laws, which is why bright line tests originating there makes sense.
Therefore, I think it is more rational to argue that all state legislatures have made a bright line, ie, under 18 you are not adults, and the majority of state legislatures made a bright line that under 18 you can't be executed, and the Court is enforcing those widely used standards, rather than that the Court can on its own determine what the bright line is.
For example, the Court has determined that mentally incompetent people can not be executed, but I don't believe that the court determined the bright line as to who is mentally incompetent or at what digit of IQ that occurs. That is left to the legislature, or to the jury.
With this case, the Court has taken what most legislatures have determined, ie, that under 18 can't be executed, and said that it is such a broadly held view that no legislature can now choose to execute those convicted of crimes committed under age 18 because it is now "cruel and unusual." The distinction is that the bright line was created by the majority of legislatures and the Court was required to adopt it through the Constitutional definition of the phrase "cruel and unusual," as opposed to the line being merely a Court creation.
posted by Jrudkis @ 10:35 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The pundits on one of the Sunday morning political talk shows, I think it was Stephanopolous' show, took the opposite view. They were all complaining that the court was imposing this on the state legislatures. One of them, I think George Will, said something about a few people in their black robes deciding what is cruel and unusual for the rest of us. He and Mfume actually agreed on that point, if not on the overall issue at hand.
The Court is imposing it on a few legislatures, but not most. Most had chosen to either not execute minors, or not execute anyone. It is those legislatures that decided not to execute children that made the punishment unusual. Plus, the ruling only effects 70 current inmates out of a population of 300 million, which is pretty much an indication that the punishment is unusual.
But the point really is not whether the Court was right, but that it is in their mandate to make the decision, as the final interpreter of the Constitution. The arguments that this is outside the duty of the Court are hollow.
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