why-is-the-us-still-executing-teenage-offenders

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/us/why-is-the-us-still-executing-teenage-offenders/
Why Is The US Still Executing Teenage Offenders?




By Brian Evans

June 11, 2012 at 8:37 PM



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18 and 19 and 20 year-olds are not considered responsible enough decision makers to drink legally, yet they can be held fully responsible for their crimes and sentenced to the ultimate, irreversible punishment of death.



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Texas is preparing to execute Yokamon Hearn on July 18th. If his execution is carried out, he would become the 483rd person put to death since Texas resumed executions in 1982.



Yokamon Hearn was 19 years old when he and 3 other youths set out to steal a car. They ended up shooting and killing Frank Meziere, a 23-year-old stockbroker. All four defendants were charged with capital murder, but the other three plead guilty and received deals. One got life imprisonment, the other two got ten years for aggravated robbery.



Yokamon Hearn was a teenager at the time of his crime, but not a juvenile. Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of Child lays out the international standard for not executing juvenile offenders, defined as those who were under 18 at the time of the crime. (The U.S. is the only country except for Somalia that has not ratified this treaty.)



Likewise, Part III of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (to which the U.S. is a Party) also calls on states to prohibit the execution of offenders under 18. Upon ratification of the this treaty in 1992, the U.S. explicitly reserved for itself the right to ignore this provision and continue to kill these young offenders. But finally in 2005, with the Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. put an end to executions of anyone under 18 at the time of the crime.



None of this helps Yokamon Hearn. Yet eighteen is an arbitrary age. There is no magic age at which one suddenly becomes a responsible adult, fully capable of making smart, informed decisions and not acting on impulse. Recent science tells us that brain development continues well into one’s 20′s, as does psychological and emotional maturation.



18 and 19 and 20 year-olds are not considered responsible enough decision makers to drink legally, yet they can be held fully responsible for their crimes and sentenced to the ultimate, irreversible punishment of death. On he one hand, we seek to protect our youth from their immaturity; on the other we punish (and even kill) them for it.



The fact that their development has not been fully realized also means that young offenders who may have carried out impulsive, thoughtless actions as teenagers are more likely than their adult counterparts to successfully change and redeem their past mistakes. Executing people for crimes committed when they were teenagers ignores the fact that, in prison, they can grow up and become productive, functioning members of society.



Despite extensive scientific evidence of the differences between youth and adults related to culpability, decision making, and susceptibility to peer pressure, U.S. states continue to execute people for crimes committed when they were teenagers. Since 1982 Texas alone has killed at least 70 people who were aged 17, 18 or 19 at the time of their crime. This practice needs to stop immediately.

Criticism

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/60875/jewish/Criticism.htm

Criticism






If you see what needs to be repaired and know how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that G-d has left for you to perfect. But if you only see what is wrong and what is ugly, then it is you yourself that needs repair.

The Elderly

The Elderly






Ours is a society in which one's value is too often measured in terms of physical strength. This has engendered feelings of uselessness among many elderly, which in turn, contributes to depression.



The Torah perspective, which prefers wisdom to physical strength as a measure of value, holds the elderly in high esteem. For it is with age and the experience of life that one gains wisdom. Whereas the physical strength of an aging person may be diminished, the faculties of the mind are enhanced. It is for this reason that the elderly must occupy and utilize their mental faculties, and aspire to greater spiritual growth. I advocate the establishment of learning institutions for the elderly for this express purpose.

Education

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/60780/jewish/Education.htm

Education






In a mature tree, a gash here or a torn branch there is of little or no consequence. But the smallest scratch in the seed, the slightest nick in the sapling, results in an irrevocable deformity -- in a flaw which the decades to come will deepen rather than erase.



Hence the great care and vigilance required in the education of the young. The values imparted to the child must be impeccable, free of even the slightest and most "forgivable" blemish.

Community and Individuality

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/143573/jewish/Community-Individuality.htm

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Community & Individuality





A Torah scroll contains 304,805 letters, each handwritten in black ink on parchment by a highly trained scribe. If a single letter is missing or deformed, the entire scroll is unfit for use.



Another important law regarding the Torah scroll is that each of its letters must be ringed by a blank strip of parchment. Should a letter touch its fellow even by a hair, thereby violating the "white space" between them, again, the entire scroll is disqualified from use until the error is corrected.



Every Jew is a letter in G-d's scroll. Our sages tell us that if a single Jewish soul had been absent from Sinai, the Torah could not have been given to us. The people of Israel comprise a single, interdependent entity; the lack or deformity of a single Jewish soul, G-d forbid, would spell a lack or deformity in us all.



But equally important is the inviolable "white space" which distinguishes each and every one of us as a unique individual. Often, a strong sense of community and communal mission obscures the differences between its members, blurring them to a faceless mass. Says the Torah: true, my hundreds of thousands of letters spell a single integral message. But this message is comprised of hundreds of thousands of voices, each articulating it in its own particular manner and medium. To detract from the individuality and uniqueness of one is to detract from the integrity of the collective whole.

The child in us

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/143572/jewish/Childhood.htm
Childhood






"A person is obligated to say: The entire world was created for my sake." (Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a).



To a child, this is obvious fact. He or she is, and is the center and focus of all. Father and mother and the rest of the universe exist merely to cater to his needs.



The undesirable aspects of such an attitude are self-evident, and weeding out the negative in man's base instincts is what education is all about. But the egocentric instinct that the child exemplifies has a positive side as well. A child has no problem dealing with an insignificance of self in face of humanity's billions and the vastness of the universe. A child is utterly convinced that his or her existence has meaning and his/her deeds have consequence.



This is the child in ourselves that we must learn to cultivate: the conviction that our every thought and deed is of real, even global, significance.



We know that a sneeze in New Jersey can cause a thunderstorm in China. Can we say the same of the social universe? Can a single act, word or thought on our part resound in billions of lives?



Ask your child. Or the child in you.

Action

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/62233/jewish/Action.htm
Action






People imagine that since G-d is not physical, therefore He must be in heaven. But the heavens--and all things spiritual--are just as much creations as the earth. Less dissonant, more harmonious, more lucid--but finite realms nonetheless.



G-d is not found due to the capacity of a place, but by His desire to be there. And what He desires most is to be found in the work of our hands, fixing up His world.



In the heavens is G-d's light. In the work of our hands dwells G-d Himself, the source of all light.

Destruction of the two holy temples

Chapter 14


This psalm speaks of the destruction of the two Holy Temples-the first by Nebuchadnezzar, and the second by Titus.



1. For the Conductor, by David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God!" [Man's] deeds have become corrupt and abominable, no one does good. 2. The Lord looked down from heaven upon mankind, to see if there was any wise man who searches for God. 3. They have all gone astray together, they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. 4. Indeed, all the evildoers, who devour My people as they devour bread, who do not call upon the Lord, will [ultimately] come to know [the consequences of their actions]. 5. There they will be seized with fright, for God is with the righteous generation. 6. You scorn the counsel of the lowly, that he puts his trust in the Lord. 7. O that out of Zion would come Israel's deliverance! When the Lord returns the captivity of His people, Jacob will exult, Israel will rejoice.
 
Chapter 16


When one is in need, he should not implore God in his own merit, for he must leave his merits for his children.



1. A michtam,1 by David. Watch over me, O God, for I have put my trust in You. 2. You, [my soul,] have said to God, "You are my Master; You are not obligated to benefit me.” 3. For the sake of the holy ones who lie in the earth, and for the mighty-all my desires are fulfilled in their merit. 4. Those who hasten after other [gods], their sorrows shall increase; I will not offer their libations of blood, nor take their names upon my lips. 5. The Lord is my allotted portion and my share; You guide my destiny. 6. Portions have fallen to me in pleasant places; indeed, a beautiful inheritance is mine. 7. I bless the Lord Who has advised me; even in the nights my intellect admonishes me.2 8. I have set the Lord before me at all times; because He is at my right hand, I shall not falter. 9. Therefore my heart rejoices and my soul exults; my flesh, too, rests secure. 10. For You will not abandon my soul to the grave, You will not allow Your pious one to see purgatory. 11. Make known to me the path of life, that I may be satiated with the joy of Your presence, with the bliss of Your right hand forever.
 
 
 
Chapter 17


A loftily person should not ask God to test him with some sinful matter, or other things. If one has sinned, he should see to reform himself, and to save many others from sin.



1. A prayer by David. Hear my sincere [plea], O Lord; listen to my cry; give ear to my prayer, expressed by guileless lips. 2. Let my verdict come forth from before You; let Your eyes behold uprightness. 3. You have probed my heart, examined it in the night, tested me and found nothing; no evil thought crossed my mind; as are my words so are my thoughts. 4. So that [my] human deeds conform with the words of Your lips, I guard myself from the paths of the lawbreakers. 5. Support my steps in Your paths, so that my feet shall not falter. 6. I have called upon You, for You, O Lord, will answer me; incline Your ear to me, hear what I say. 7. Withhold Your kindness-O You who delivers with Your right hand those who put their trust in You-from those who rise up against [You]. 8. Guard me like the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings 9. from the wicked who despoil me, [from] my mortal enemies who surround me. 10. Their fat has closed [their hearts]; their mouths speak arrogantly. 11. They encircle our footsteps; they set their eyes to make us stray from the earth. 12. His appearance is like a lion longing to devour, like a young lion lurking in hiding. 13. Arise, O Lord! Confront him, bring him to his knees; rescue my soul from the wicked [who serves as] Your sword. 14. Let me be among those whose death is by Your hand, O Lord, among those who die of old age, whose portion is eternal life and whose innards are filled with Your concealed goodness; who are sated with sons and leave their abundance to their offspring. 15. Because of my righteousness, I shall behold Your countenance; in the time of resurrection, I will be sated by Your image.