Why do we execute people in this country?
Sometimes we explain it as punishment, sometimes as deterrence, sometimes as justice -- but that's all nonsense, of course.
The main reason we execute people is revenge.
We apply the death penalty in cases where the murder is so heinous that we don't know how else to respond. For most of us, I'm afraid, executions give us a sense of balance and the victim's family a sense of satisfaction.
Some acts are so shocking that if we allow them to pass without imposing the ultimate penalty, without getting our collective revenge, the universe will seem out of whack.
Executions fill a deep cultural need that isn't often addressed when we debate the death penalty.
Which brings us to the question of whether we really want revenge against people who killed when they were teenagers.
Texas says it does and it takes its revenge often.
The latest such Texas execution occurred Wednesday when 24-year-old Toronto Patterson was strapped to a gurney and lethal drugs were injected into his arm.
The former Dallas drug dealer was accused of killing three people in 1995, when he was 17. You be the judge of how heinous the crime actually was.
Prosecutors said he used a .38 caliber pistol to kill his cousin, Kimberly Brewer, 25. And her two daughters, Jennifer, 6; and Ollie, 3. He shot them from a range of 3 feet.
The motive -- he wanted the expensive wheel rims on a car he took from the Brewer home.
Patterson would later admit to stealing the car and the wheel rims, though he claimed others killed Brewer and her daughters. A jury didn't buy that explanation and neither did the appeals courts.
Shortly before Patterson left this Earth at 6:20 p.m. Texas time, the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington refused to block his execution.
Three of the nine justices dissented from the refusal, which shows how close Patterson came to living since it takes four justices to grant review in a case. And if review of a case is granted, the full court never lets an execution go forward. If the three dissenters had been joined by fourth, the Supreme Court would have heard Patterson's case in the upcoming term.
Justice John Paul Stevens, who has lived 82 years as compared to Patterson's 24, issued an opinion saying he voted to grant a stay of execution.
Stevens cited the late Justice William Brennan, who wrote the dissent for a 5-4 minority the last time the Supreme Court approved the execution of those who committed murder before the age of 18.
In the minority dissent in 1989's Stanford vs. Kentucky, Brennan "explained why the Eighth Amendment prohibits the taking of the life of a person as punishment for a crime committed when below the age of 18," Stevens said. "I joined that opinion and remain convinced that it correctly interpreted the law."
The Eighth Amendment bans "cruel and unusual punishments."
Stevens, who was joined in dissent by fellow liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, said since the Stanford decision "the issue has been the subject of further debate and discussion both in this country and in other civilized nations. Given the apparent consensus that exists among the states and in the international community against the execution of a capital sentence imposed on a juvenile offender, I think it would be appropriate for the (Supreme) Court to revisit the issue at the earliest opportunity."
The learned justice was perhaps stretching it a bit when he said there is a "consensus" among the states about the execution of a juvenile offender.
Actually, 16 of the 38 states that use the death penalty have a minimum offender age of 18 when deciding whether to execute someone. The federal government has the same policy. The other death penalty states, however, use 16 or 17 as the cut-off.
The Death Penalty Information Center says 21 men have been executed in the United States since 1976 -- when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a 3-year hiatus -- for crimes committed before they were adults.
Since 1990, only the United States and a handful of Islamic countries have executed "juvenile offenders" -- grown men who were condemned for crimes committed when they were teenagers.
The United States actually ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1992, but we entered a reservation to Article 6, which bans the death penalty for those who were not adults when they committed a crime.
Amnesty International tells us that the Human Rights Committee, an expert body set up to monitor the treaty's implementation, has said that the U.S. reservation is invalid and should be withdrawn; while 11 European countries object to the reservation because they think it's incompatible with the rest of the covenant.
Tough nuggies.
We don't take orders in this country from Rome, or London, or Berlin, or from any of the other frog-eating bureaucrats in Europe. Hell, we can barely take orders from Washington -- very often, we don't.
But as a nation we are swiftly reaching the point at which we may have to ask ourselves: Do we really want take the ultimate revenge against people who did some truly brutal things when they weren't adults?
Are these adult death row inmates even the same people they were when they were teenagers? Is anybody?
Are you?
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Michael Kirkland is UPI's Legal Affairs Correspondent. He has been covering the legal community for 9 years.
