Minors, finally minors

I've long held that minors should never be tried as adults, because they aren't seen fit to enjoy the full privileges of citizenship, and thus should not be burdened with the same responsibilities (oddly enough, this arugment from an essay I wrote for Simon's Rock College in 10th grade...but that's a tangent).

In any case, today the Supreme Court, in Roper v. Simmons (03-633) agreed that, at least, people who committed crimes under the age of 18 cannot be put to death. I only have a quote from an AP article because the decision is not live yet:

"Our society views juveniles ... as categorically less culpable than the average criminal" said Justice Kennedy.

...as well we should. Or, to quote Justice Ginsberg, from the arguments:

But the age 18 is set even for such things as buying tobacco.
The -- the dividing line between people who are members of the community, the adult community, is pervasively 18, to vote, to sit on juries, to serve in the military. Why should it be that someone is death-eligible under the age of 18 but not eligible to be an adult member of the community?

AP Article | Case Documents | Decision (forthcoming)

(Expect an update to this later. For the record, I know that many of you will take issue with this decision on federalism grounds--shouldn't such a decision be up to the states? Though I suspect not, I'm not really sure, and can't say anything more intelligent on that until the decision comes out, so please don't get embroiled in that debate. What I do know is that no one will ever be exectued for something done when he/she was only 16, and that I think that's a good thing.)

UPDATE: The decision is now up (Via: How Appealing) at: http://scotus.ap.org/scotus/ (the first four links) but I'm too tired to read it right now. nighty night!