Should the US Supreme Court decide on such issues as the juvenile death penalty?

The answer to this question depends on your on social and political ideology People who support capital punishment for juveniles may not approve of the Supreme Court having authority to overturn legislation imposing death for crimes committed while a person was under the age of 18, as they did in Roper v. Simmons 543 US 551 (2005). Some might not understand that the Court's decision, which was based on constitutional interpretation, held that imposing the death penalty on this group of offenders was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, a decision they were able to make without concern for populist pressure The ruling in Roper follows a long line of Supreme Court decisions removing the death penalty from cases involving those with extremely low IQs or found guilty of rape or other crimes in the absence of capital murder, as cruel and unusual punishment, an issue Congress chose not to address itself.It also follows a trend in many states toward abolishing capital punishment altogether Detractors of these decisions are likely to oppose the Supreme Court's right of judicial review, in general, as illegitimate because the power isn't explicitly assigned in the Constitution Anyone who questions the Founding Fathers' intent with regard to the power of the Judicial branch may consider Alexander Hamilton's words in The Federalist Papers Number 78, an essay predating constitutional ratification and discussing the role of the judiciary in the United States' tripartite government Alexander Hamilton Federalist No.

78 Excerpts: The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing and If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law.

It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.