User:Reedkross/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Gun Control


 * After going through this article, some parts seemed to be out dated. Some of the studies and research that they talked about was from early/later 1990's and also early 2000's. Obviously, we all know that the gun control debate is been on the rise and newer data may be out
 * This article did not seem very bias at all. The points that were made, came from factual information and did not skew to the left or right.
 * I did test out a few of the links and it did take me to a few sources that did seem to be reliable.
 * It was also nice to see that this user wrote about other countries as well (Canada and Australia).
 * Since they have somewhat similar economies and governments, it was cool to see how they compare to us.

Potential edits: Capital Punishment in the United States


 * I would like to add a more defined term of what capital punishment is and how someone would be sentenced to a capital punishment
 * I would like to add a few more botched executions to the list already there because those are interesting
 * The section of executive warrants is a little short and I feel like I can add more to it
 * Overall, this article is pretty good and full of information, but I would just like to go through and add more explanations to the data that is stated in the article and make some of the section longer to add more in depth information
 * I would like to add to the intro paragraph and give some more history on why it was started and how it was started
 * As of right now, I can not think of anything I want to edit, but if I think of something then I will put it in here

Article edits:


 * Adding section called: "Juvenile capital punishment"
 * In 1642, the first ever juvenile was sentence to death in Plymouth Colony, MA for bestiality. Ever since then, 361 other juveniles have been sentenced to the death penalty as well. Kent v. United States (1966) turned the tides for juvenile capital punishment sentencing when it limited the wavier discretion juvenile courts had. Before this case, juvenile courts had the freedom to wavier juvenile cases to criminal courts without a hearing, which did not make the waiving process consistent across states. Thoughts about abolishing the death penalty started happening between 1983-1986. In 1987, Thompson v. Oklahoma, the Supreme court threw away Thompson's death sentence due to it being cruel and unusual punishment.
 * It was not until the court case in 2005, Roper v. Simmons that the juvenile death penalty was abolished. This is the case due to the United States Supreme Court finding that the death of juveniles by capital punishment is in conflict with the eight and fourteenth amendments, which deal with cruel and unusual punishment. Prior to the abolishing the juvenile death penalty sentence in 2005, any juvenile age 16 years and over could be sentences to the death penalty.

Final edits: added entire section on juvenile capital punishment

Juvenile capital punishment[edit]
In 1642, the first ever juvenile, Thomas Graunger, was sentence to death in Plymouth Colony, MA for bestiality. Ever since then, 361 other juveniles have been sentenced to the death penalty as well. Kent v. United States (1966), turned the tides for juvenile capital punishment sentencing when it limited the wavier discretion juvenile courts had. Before this case, juvenile courts had the freedom to waiver juvenile cases to criminal courts without a hearing, which did not make the waiving process consistent across states. Thoughts about abolishing the death penalty started happening between 1983 to 1986. In 1987, Thompson v. Oklahoma, the Supreme court threw away Thompson's death sentence due to it being cruel and unusual punishment.

It was not until Roper v. Simmons that the juvenile death penalty was abolished due to the United States Supreme Court finding that the execution of juveniles is in conflict with the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment, which deal with cruel and unusual punishment. Prior to abolishing the juvenile death penalty in 2005, any juvenile aged 16 years or older could be sentenced to death. Since 2005, there has been no more executions or talk of executing juveniles in the United States.