Florida’s Moral Compass is Spinning Out of Control

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the constitutionality of sentencing children to life in prison without parole for crimes that do not, I repeat, do not involve homicide. Obviously, children who kill may deserve life in prison, although even that may be argued as cruel and unusual punishment. At the heart of the argument is the question of when people are mature enough to be fully culpable for their actions. The court seemed to be hung up on the age thing. Justice Breyer highlighted the dilemma by asking rhetorically, is it 10? No. 11? No. 17? Maybe…

Florida is at the heart of the case. There are 111 juveniles serving life without parole for crimes that do not involve killing. 77 of these cases are in Florida. One example being cited as cruel and unusual punishment is the case of a 13 old convicted of rape. My goodness, the child was barely into puberty! And he gets life without parole… Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the national average sentence for rape is 10 years. She was pointing out how far out of line the Florida punishment is with most of America. It’s not surprising either that many of these cases involve African American boys who raped white girls. Not fifty years ago, they would’ve been lynched  without a trial. Some progress I suppose….

In my view it’s a clear case of too much retribution and not enough consideration for redemption. They shouldn’t call prisons correctional facilities if they only intend to exact public retribution. They should call then punishment facilities and stop implying that redemption and good behavior might be recognized by the system.

State sovereignty may rear its ugly head on this case as well. Even though the rest of the nation may be more lenient and forgiving of children than Florida, Justice Roberts may come down on the side of the state’s right to set the punishment in accordance with the mores of the state, not the nation. But isn't that the kind of logic that tolerated lynching? Justice Thomas, wake up and say something, please...