Taking juveniles off death row: this year the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the juvenile death penalty is unconstitutional. If it decides so, the Court will be on the cutting edge of death-penalty reform.(Youth)

DESPITE A JUDICIARY INCREASINGLY DOMINATED BY CONSERVATIVE APPOINTEES, the federal courts have shown a heartening willingness to rein in the death penalty. In recent years, they have limited who is eligible and have placed other restrictions on states' arbitrary conduct. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 6 to 3, halted the practice of executing mentally retarded prisoners, declaring it unconstitutional in Atkins v. Virginia.

Later this year, the Court will hear arguments in Roper v. Simmons, a watershed case involving Christopher Simmons, a young man who had ...

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