IANAL (I am not a lawyer), nor do I play one in my imagination, but I think a majority of the Justices on the US Supreme Court have forgotten (or possibly, in some cases, never knew) what their responsibilities and limitations are in that role.

Boy, doesn't that sound pretty egotistical? Me, a simple boy from Texas with no education in the Law whatsoever, thinks he knows better than five people who have law degrees, worked as attorneys, most likely served on the bench at various levels of courts, were selected by Presidents and confirmed by the Senate, and have years of experience on the Supreme Court itself.

Yeah, that sounds pretty conceited, even though I'm the one saying it. But that doesn't change what I believe, and I believe that in a case decided earlier this week by the Court in a 5-4 decision, that those five Justices are the ones who are conceited, and have seriously damaged the future value of the Court by their decision.

Okay, I'm arrogant. So sue me. In the meantime, while I'm waiting for those papers to be served, I'm going to tell you how and why they were wrong.

As you've undoubtedly read by now, on Tuesday the Supreme Court declared that executing murderers who committed their crimes prior to their 18th birthday is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. While I don't necessarily find fault with the ruling, I believe that the rationales used to support it are dead wrong.

Now, before you start jumping to the wrong conclusion about me, as I discussed here and here, I'm against capital punishment. As I indicated in the linked posts, I think there are too many situations where innocent people have been murdered by the state, and as a firm believer in the principle that it's better that ten guilty people go free rather than one innocent man be punished wrongly. And my feelings about that principle multiply tenfold when it comes to putting someone to death.

It's a shame I haven't written the post that's been bouncing around in my head for a while about legislating morality, because it would be really helpful to refer to here. But in a nutshell, that's what lawmaking is: legislating morality. Morality is what tells us that stealing is wrong, lying (perjury) is wrong, murder is wrong. And that's what legislators do. It's not what judges do.

It seems to me that interpreting the Eighth Amendment, as it pertains to cruel and unusual punishment, is exclusively the purview of the legislature. Just as, on a broader scale, society through its elected representatives determines what's legal (moral), so must society decide whether a particular punishment is cruel or unusual. That's not a legal determination based on the interpretation of law. You know, what judges are supposed to do.

The majority on the Supreme Court overstepped their bounds on this one. It's not their job to interpret what's morally acceptable to society. And they need to stop using foreign law and rulings as a basis for interpreting US law.

Justice O'Connor got it right. "The court's analysis is premised on differences in the aggregate between juveniles and adults, which frequently do not hold true when comparing individuals," she said. "Chronological age is not an unfailing measure of psychological development, and common experience suggests that many 17-year-olds are more mature than the average young 'adult.'"

Individual states' laws recognize this point, which is why it should be up to the states to determine what punishment is cruel or unusual. Even though, in my opinion, they got the base result right, this decision is the responsibility of the legislature. This case will hurt us in the long run through its unintended effects, and for many years to come.