•  HOME 
  •  ARCHIVES 
  •  BOOKS 
  •  PDF ARCHIVE 
  •  WWP 
  •  SUBSCRIBE 
  •  DONATE 
  •  MUNDOOBRERO.ORG
  • Loading


Follow workers.org on
Twitter Facebook iGoogle




Where's the justice?

Published Mar 2, 2005 3:29 PM

Has the U.S. Supreme Court suddenly decided to embrace justice? In a March 1 ruling, the court found that executing someone for a crime committed when that person was a minor is "cruel and unusual punishment."

There had been no "moral values" preachings from the White House pulpit before this ruling against the execution of children. Fox News hadn't put their screamers on the case.

So what happened?

Maybe the public disclosures of the brutal torture of prisoners by the Pentagon and CIA have brought too much worldwide attention to the U.S. prison system. The torture of prisoners of war--and they are prisoners of war even if the White House and Pentagon want to say that they aren't--is after all a mirror that reflects the abuse of prisoners inside the United States. And some--political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier--are given the "special treatment."

The U.S. has been the only industrialized country in the world to openly execute anyone for crimes committed while under the age of 18. It has been in clear violation of all international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says plainly that the "sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below 18 years old." The Convention on the Rights of the Child says the same thing.

So the Supreme Court ruling ends a blatant violation of international law. There are 72 juveniles whose lives were immediately saved by this ruling.

But the ruling admits a little to cover up something even bigger. There are almost 4,000 people on death row in the U.S., more than in any other country in the world and in all history. The death penalty itself is considered to be a crime against humanity under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

The death penalty must be stopped altogether. Not just because most on U.S. death row may actually be completely innocent. DNA testing on death row inmates in Illinois immediately turned up 13 innocent victims of the U.S. "justice" system. The Republican governor had to announce a moratorium on executions.

The majority of those on death rows in the United States are Black and Latino and a greater majority of them are poor. The racist and classist U.S. "justice system" is the real crime and there can be no real justice until it is abolished altogether.