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Sigg's Essay On Punishment And Teen Killers

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An indication that disproves the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision centers on the idea that one’s age should not be used as an excuse to minimize their punishment. In her essay “On Punishment and Teen Killers”, Jennifer Jenkins supports this by arguing that a juvenile should not use their age as an excuse to get out of trouble with the law. After mentioning the horrific case of a teenager who killed a pregnant woman for satisfaction, it is revealed that the murderer was charged with three life sentences. Despite the murderer’s wicked actions, some people still believed that the murderer did not deserve life sentences just because the killer was not considered a legal adult. To support her argument that age isn’t enough of an excuse, Jenkins writes “There are advocates who wish to minimize …show more content…

Jenkins also expresses that if an adult were to be sentenced the same way and for the same crime as Sigg, there would be no remorse because his age. This just unfair in every manny. The number of years an individual has lived on Earth should not, under any circumstances, be used at any time to accomplish something, such as getting out of trouble with the law. In addition, in his essay “Some Juvenile Killers Deserve Adult Justice”, Peter A. Weir proves this by arguing that juveniles use their age to condone themselves. In the month of November in 2013, Austin Sigg was sentenced to life and an additional 86 years in prison for murdering 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway. As he faced justice through the court system, advocates unnecessarily argued that he was only a child and too young to serve as an adult. To show that an individual’s age should not be used as an excuse to justify their actions, Weir states “Some juveniles commit crimes so serious, so heinous, that public safety mandates — and justice demands — full accountability in our criminal justice system. There are those who argue this is unfair and unjust. They say the juvenile brain is not fully developed until well into the

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