Doug Berman posts about a Heritage Foundation report entitled “Adult Times for Adult Crimes: Life Without Parole for Juvenile Killers and Violent Teens.” It decries efforts to by “anti-incarceration activists” to undermine life without parole for juvenile offenders, and “hold these dangerous criminals accountable.”
Replete with the usual hyperbole, drawing from the images of super-predator children of such unredeemable evil that they really ought to be put to death, but can’t because of the misguided Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons, prohibiting capital punishment for children, the report argues that we must maintain this vital tool in the war on crime.
But it’s this line from the executive summary that really caught my attention:
All criminal sentences are, and must be, subject to second-guessing by judges. That’s why we have judges. That’s why we want judges. The Spanish Inquisition didn’t do such a great job of things, and we’ve learned a bit from it. We do not want individual hanging judges, or juries, to impose harsh, dirty justice, disconnected from its legitimate purposes and imposing the visceral reaction of the angry townsfolk.
Put aside the obvious, that these are children, immature and unprepared to think, act and reason like adults. Put aside that we cannot continue to throw children away and justify it as saving society, particularly when they aren’t out own children. But beware this attack on “second-guessing judges.” This, along with the activist judges rhetoric, is the sort of thing that causes our system to devolve into the abyss of pure, mindless retribution. It’s easy. It feels good. And it’s wrong.
And as long as I’m at it, don’t forget that these are children.
Replete with the usual hyperbole, drawing from the images of super-predator children of such unredeemable evil that they really ought to be put to death, but can’t because of the misguided Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons, prohibiting capital punishment for children, the report argues that we must maintain this vital tool in the war on crime.
But it’s this line from the executive summary that really caught my attention:
If they succeed, an important tool of criminal punishment will be eliminated, and all criminal sentences could be subjected to second-guessing by judges, just as they are in capital punishment cases today.Never before have I seen anyone attempt to characterize judicial review as “second-guessing by judges,” as if it’s the next intrinsic evil of the system that will devastate some Stygian sense of retributive justice and leave society at the mercy of these evil child criminals.
All criminal sentences are, and must be, subject to second-guessing by judges. That’s why we have judges. That’s why we want judges. The Spanish Inquisition didn’t do such a great job of things, and we’ve learned a bit from it. We do not want individual hanging judges, or juries, to impose harsh, dirty justice, disconnected from its legitimate purposes and imposing the visceral reaction of the angry townsfolk.
Put aside the obvious, that these are children, immature and unprepared to think, act and reason like adults. Put aside that we cannot continue to throw children away and justify it as saving society, particularly when they aren’t out own children. But beware this attack on “second-guessing judges.” This, along with the activist judges rhetoric, is the sort of thing that causes our system to devolve into the abyss of pure, mindless retribution. It’s easy. It feels good. And it’s wrong.
And as long as I’m at it, don’t forget that these are children.
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Why is it okay to second guess judges on abortion but not on criminal penalties? How else could you characterize critiques of “judicial activism” on the right except as “second guessing judges”?
The source, Heritage Foundation, says it all.Is this the heritage you want to leave to your children?
Do legislators want to decide each sentence case-by-case where a 60% majority was required? If not they have no business horning into the sentencing process.
Left to their own devices, I’m afraid that legislators would ultimately decide that everyone should be sentenced to life plus cancer. They would make it two lives plus cancer, but that would just be silly.