An article about the death sentence for youths caught my attention in the National section of today's NYT. I'm definitely one of those people who likes watching Law and Order, CSI, etc etc and so naturally, I find stuff like this article really interesting. However, just because I like watching those shows, doesn't mean I've been desensitized to the information presented. For example, this article was about the Supreme Court agreeing to hear cases on whether sentencing teenagers involved in killings to die in prison is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Having taken a political science course on the US legal system, I am very much familiar with certain amendments, including this one, and I think the reporter raised a lot of good points about why this might be in violation of that amendment. However, it wasn't until the end of the article that the two cases in question were described. One of the cases is about a boy who was 14 years old when he killed a 52 year old neighbor. He beat the neighbor and set fire to his home after a night of drinking and smoking, causing the neighbor to die of smoke inhalation. To me, although the individual was young and not yet mature, I can't imagine he wasn't aware of what he was doing and therefore, I believe he should be justly punished. Maybe if he's a changed person he deserves to be free one day, but that's an awful crime to commit and after reading the article I was definitely a little disturbed.
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