Dallas Morning News

This is a link to a series the DMN is doing on the issue of 17-year-olds on Texas' death row. It's been very interesting so far, and relatively even-handed (so far) compared to most media coverage of this issue (which isn't saying much, of course). The first three are done and are available at this link; let's see how the final two in the series play out ...

(The DMN requires registration for access. The 5-part series is much too long to be included on this forum, sorry.)

"Raymond Levi Cobb, for example, told police he killed a 23-year-old woman while stealing a stereo from her Walker County home in 1993. He confessed to dragging her body to the woods half a mile away. Then he returned to the house, took the woman's sleeping 1-year-old daughter from her bed, and went back to the woods.

There, he dug the woman's grave. In the hole next to her he placed the baby, who was still breathing as he shoveled in the dirt."

Some things you can't ever understand. No amount of mitigating evidence would affect my opinion were I sitting on this jury. I think it's rare that I find myself with such a clear opinion, but these facts are just chilling.

Last term, the SC decided a case dealing with Miranda -- Yarobrough v. Alvarado. I think it provides us with a clue as to the outcome of the question of whether it is unconstitutional to execute a 17-year old.

In the case, police invited a 17-year old to come to the police station. He was brought by his parents. No Miranda warnings. Confession. He went back home. A few months later, he was indicted and arrested. At trial, he claims his confession was inadmissible because no Miranda warnings.

His argument was that, as a juvenile with no criminal history, he thought he was in custody when talking to police. The court declined to give weight to his youth and inexperience, judging the custodial/noncustodial status through the same objective test used for everyone else.

It was a 5-4 vote. I suspect that's same way the case will come out on execution of 17-year olds. What do you think?

The Attorney General of Missouri also argues in his brief that the Missouri Supreme Court had no business (under the doctrine of stare decisis) in determining these executions had become cruel and unusual under "evolving standards". It is my hope that the court may decide Simmons on that basis alone, because that is what they should do (even if there are 5 votes for overruling Stanford). As General Nixon says, lower courts should be bound by Eighth Amendment precedents. They are not set free to create a patchwork of differing constitutional rules, reflecting their own changing and subjective views of what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."

I have a 17 year old charged with caital murder right now. He and his buddy killed a dealer and his girlfriend after luring them to a deal. The 17 year old was the mastermind of the crime. His 24 year old co-d didn't even know the couple. The kid had known the male victim for ten years and even worked with him as a house framer. This 17 year old is as hard a case as I have seen. He maintained his story even when the police were able to negate everything he said. He finally lawyered up. I guess his 5 years of conatact with the juvenile system taught him something after all. The kicker? His former step-dad is a police officer as is the dealer's father.