The Supreme Court came down, somewhat expectedly, on the side of banning the practice of executing minors. The Court decided decades ago that those aged 15 and under were ineligible for the death penalty but the Court allowed executions for those 16 and 17 at the time of the crime. 19 states had laws allowing executions of minors. In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court declared the execution of minors to be "unusually cruel". The only interesting piece of this ruling is the placement of Kennedy and O'Connor. Kennedy actually wrote the majority decision while O'Connor sided with the dissent. I thought it would be opposite. This is a great victory for those of us fighting capital punishment in America.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62584-2005Mar1.html