Court on Capital Punishment

I have just been reading your newspaper. There was depressing news: Students are still being oppressed in China; the environment is disintegrating before our eyes; the Los Angeles schools’ dropout rate is increasing. But what really outraged me was the Supreme Court’s approval of the death penalty for 16 year olds and the retarded.

I am 14, and it appalls me to think that people only two years older could be given the electric chair or gas chamber. I’m not saying murderers should go free. I just think that if the murderers are children (physically or mentally), they should be given a second chance at life.

It’s sad to be growing up in a society where capital punishment does not even spare those who have their whole lives ahead of them or those who can’t wholly understand the gravity of their crimes.

AMANDA WATSON

Hagerstown, Md.