versus the states' rights. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, "In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty. The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards." The United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child forbids using the death penalty on a child under 18, even when they have committed a crime, and has ben ratified by 192 countries - almost every country in the world - with the USA and Somalia being the only exceptions.
Under this new provision, Nate Akilar was only 17 years of age when the death of Cherese Consort occurred, so he could not be given the death penalty under the new procedural ruling (International Information, 2005).
On the second issue of the defendants mental status, he has had two prior convictions, one for simple assault which was adjudicated as such because of his mild mental retardation, and the second for aggravated assault, also adjudicated as such because of his mild mental retardation, yet his mental status seems to have played no role in the present case. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of a convicted rapist and murderer, John Penry, on Texas's death row, who has a mental age of six, whose case revolved around procedural issues as to whether the jury which heard the case was properly informed about his mental disability (Borger, 2001). This is the second time they have heard the Penry case: after the first hearing, they ordered a new trial, by a majority of one, bec'use the jury had not been advised of his mental disability. In the second trial, the jury disregarded the judge's advice to impose a life sentence and took just over two hours to sentence him to death a second time. They also heard a case of a North Carolina man with a mental age of 10, whose lawyer's objected to his execution on the constitutional grounds that it would represent "cruel and unusual punishment." The ...