Joe Harris Sullivan has an added wrinkle -- as a Newsweek article notes (reflected by the photos shown in the two Slate articles): "At 33, Sullivan has been confined to a wheelchair for the past five years after developing a progressive form of multiple sclerosis. The stress and trauma of incarceration have exacerbated his health conditions, say his attorneys."

A life in prison in that case suggests an added amount of cruelty. Death is a unique punishment, particularly because it is final and even the restrained liberty found in a prison cell provides some meaning and existence. Our laws also place life, even under the worse circumstances, above death. Thus, assisted suicide is a crime in most areas.

All the same, for many (there is an old short story on this) life in prison is truly a hell. Not many, but a few death row inmates 'volunteer' to be executed, cutting off their appeals. For many, including me in some ways, life in prison might seem worse than death. This is one reason I don't think execution is necessarily a sound penalty even putting aside moral concerns etc. -- if we are just concerned with punishment, life in an American prison might be worse. This is curious in a way, since that would mean someone executed after ten years might be better off than someone in jail for twenty for rape. Execution remains problematic for various reasons either way.

If the death penalty is cruel and unusual for minors, a type of civil death like life without parole most probably is as well, particularly for something less than the taking of a life. It is particularly the case when the offender is thirteen -- a case back in the 1980s drew the line for executions at sixteen.* Teenage years are those where you are on the path of development to adulthood. Adulthood is the time when you have the full obligations of being a member of society.

This would include spending your life in prison, in or outside a wheelchair. Thirteen is not that.

-j

* Thus, the two different cases at issue provide a means to split the baby.

Joe:

Not many responses here and none on your thoughts which are not far from my own. Not many people understand the difference between a level 2, 4, and 5 prison in terms of the amount of freedom available. Too many have watched Shawshank and believe in it. This rings true:

"All the same, for many (there is an old short story on this) life in prison is truly a hell. Not many, but a few death row inmates 'volunteer' to be executed, cutting off their appeals. For many, including me in some ways, life in prison might seem worse than death. This is one reason I don't think execution is necessarily a sound penalty even putting aside moral concerns etc. -- if we are just concerned with punishment, life in an American prison might be worse. This is curious in a way, since that would mean someone executed after ten years might be better off than someone in jail for twenty for rape. Execution remains problematic for various reasons either way."

Shawshank was clearly fiction, but I think within its limitations, it had some value. Its portrayal of prison rape alone was an useful bit of realism.

As to that short story, it is The Bet by Anton Chekhov.

-j