Thompson v. Oklahoma

The Death Penalty is a controversial topic on its own. However, if you add the possibility of a minor receiving the death penalty it gets even more interesting. The Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons was a perfect example of that. Roper v. Simmons presented the Supreme Court with two questions: 1) whether or not the execution of those who were sixteen or seventeen at the time of a crime is cruel and unusual punished and 2) does is violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment. The main audience

situation, is it ethical to hold these two age groups, with mentalities that are worlds apart, to the same standards and punishments in the justice system? Until Roper v. Simmons in 2005, the justice system did just that, treat the actions of 16 year old with the same consequences as if they had been committed by an adult. In Roper v. Simmons the United States Supreme Court declared

restrictions for society's "unfit" neither benefit the welfare of the individual nor that of society for several moral and legal reasons. The legal validity of these involuntary sterilization laws would be challenged within the Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell. In September of 1924, at the age of eighteen, Carrie Buck, an illegitimate daughter of an allegedly feebleminded woman, was admitted to the Virginia's State Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded. Six months earlier, the Virginia State Legislature

makeup. This wasnt just a fight for an individuals freedom, it was a fight for equality as promised by legislature that even then threatened to strip away what it had promised in its governing documents. The official name of the case is Carrie Buck v John Hendren Bell Superintendent of State Colony for Epilectics and Feeble Minded. It was introduced into the Supreme Court in April of 1927 and decided the 2nd of the

2017 Final Paper Buck v. Bell Versus Eugenics Sexual compulsory sterilization is one of the most controversial topics of the eugenics movement. The first eugenic sterilization statue was passed by Indiana in 1907. However, this law and many other similar laws were highly flawed and did not coincide with state court tests. On May 2, 1927, a Supreme Court decision would change the way of the eugenics movement for years to come. This special date sets forth the case of Buck v. Bell in which the Supreme

Charles Keene was killed on the morning of January 23, 1983. His body was found in the Washita river of Grady County, Oklahoma, tied to a concrete block. He had been brutally beaten, shot, and stabbed several times. The murderers, a team of four, were ultimately caught and each given the death sentence, including, shockingly, the victim’s former brother-in-law: William Wayne Thompson, who was only fifteen years old. At the time, there was no national minimum age for the death penalty; states could

case listed in our textbook is Trop v. Dulles that took place in 1958, this case is particularly important because it developed a phrase that would be used in future cases that will be in favor of correctional reform. “According to the Court, there existed evolving standards of decency that marked the progress of maturing society”. Although the next case that follows Trop v. Dulles doesn’t happen for another ten years, but it’s very contradicting. In Witherspoon v. Illinois the Supreme Court picked

Juveniles and Capital Punishment One of the most controversial issues in the rights of juveniles today is addressed in the question, "Should the death penalty be applied to juveniles"? For nearly a century the juvenile courts have existed to shield the majority of juvenile offenders from the full weight of criminal law and to protect their entitled "special rights and immunities." In the case of Kent vs. United states in 1996, Justice Fortas stated some of these "special rights" which include; Protection

Court, 2016). The rest is history so to speak. This paper focuses on the landmark Supreme Court decisions that have changed how our juvenile justice system operates currently. Starting with the case Kent v. United States that got the juvenile ball rolling on changing its procedures. Kent v. United States The police detained a 16-year-old boy named, Morris A. Kent, Jr.

The constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty reached a settlement in 1988 in the case of Thompson v. Oklahoma when four Supreme Court Justices reached the conclusion that: persons under sixteen years of age cannot be sentenced to death (Thompson v. Oklahoma, 1988). Justice Stevens, Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun considered these important issues as they were deliberating on the case: (1) Does a national consensus forbidding