The American Spectator

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BY NEXT MORNING the cops had been tipped off-perhaps it was by Moomey, or maybe it was Tessmer. It could have been any of a dozen people who were by then in the know. That afternoon the Fenton Police showed up at the high school. They cuffed Chris in front of his classmates and led him away. Based largely on his videotaped confession, which included a reenactment of the murder, Chris was accused of first-degree murder. Convinced that his juvenile status rendered him immune to serious punishment, Chris sneered at a deal for life imprisonment. The jury came back with a guilty verdict and gave Chris the death sentence, but the Missouri Supreme Court reduced the sentence to life. The justices cited Missouri's evolving standards of decency, which would not allow them in good conscience to sentence a 17-year-old to death. Life, yes. But not death.

Fortunately, the justices didn't have to offer any evidence to support their theory that society is evolving and getting more decent. They didn't have to refute claims that in the last forty years murder and crime rates have skyrocketed while test scores have plummeted. The plain people of Missouri will just have to take their word for it. Mrs. Crook's relatives sometimes wonder what world the justices are living in.

The case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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