Too Young to Die

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"This reference to international practices is a very big deal," says Cass Sunstein, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, and is part of a surprising new trend in Supreme Court thinking. Overseas legal practices were also cited by the court in the 2002 ruling on the mentally retarded and in a 2003 decision overturning a Texas law banning gay sex. For his part, Scalia blasted his brethren for suggesting that "American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world" and pointed out that the U.S. has unique legal traditions.

In the 12 states where juvenile offenders have been languishing, death sentences will be lifted for 72 offenders. That brought dismay to many victims' families. Martin Soto-Fong was 17 in 1992 when he and two accomplices robbed the El Grande Market in Tucson, Ariz., for $300 and shot three workers. Richard Gee, who lost a brother and an uncle that day, is not happy to see the murderer exit death row. "We had him at the gates of hell," he says, "and he got kicked back." --With reporting by Eric Ferkenhoff/ Chicago, Wendy Grossman/Houston and Stacy J. Willis/Las Vegas