American Justice

A story in The Guardian points out that Jeff Weise, the 16 year-old who went on a killing spree in his Red Lake, Minnesota high school was, according to those who knew him from his posts on a Nazi web site, fairly mature given his age.

"We knew [Weise] briefly through 34 posts he made on the forum. He expressed himself well and was clearly highly intelligent and contemplative, especially for one so young," the site's administrator said in statement posted today on Nazi.org.

Perhaps he is as mature as many twenty year olds. But even though he killed wantonly and cruelly his crime did not rise to the level of a capital offense.

One of his victims was 14 and four were aged 15. At least three were girls. A student, Sondra Hegstrom, heard shooting from an adjoining classroom, she told the local newspaper, The Pioneer.

"You could hear a girl saying, 'No, Jeff. Quit! Quit! Leave me alone. Why are you doing this?' Boom, boom, boom, and then no more screaming," she said.

Horrific, but nevertheless, due to the wisdom of Anthony Kennedy and four fellow Supreme Court justices, if Weise hadn't taken his own life he would never have had to worry that it would be taken from him. Killers under 18 are not mature enough to be fully responsible for their actions Justice Kennedy opines in Simmons.

What Weise did would not have warranted punishing him with death. No matter how many fourteen year-olds he would have murdered, the loss of their lives is not sufficient to justify the taking of his. Their loss just isn't significant enough to merit the imposition of the severest punishment. Weise's life has more value in the eyes of the law than do the lives of his victims.

Meanwhile in Florida, other judges deem it perfectly appropriate to let a woman starve to death just because her husband, whom there is reason to believe may be directly responsible for her condition, wants her dead.

What a country.