What do you make of the Supreme Court's decision regarding the use of capital punishment for juveniles? Is it inconsistent with the notion of waivers, where the rationale is that violent offenders should be treated like adults or is this a reasonable position--that we can instead incarcerate juveniles for life. Which is the best use of state resources?

How one views the 2005 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that the imposition of capital punishment on juvenile offenders constituted a violation of the offenders’ rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution is a matter of perspective. That decision, Roper v. Simmons, marked a major victory for opponents of the death penalty, but the narrow margin of the Court’s decision (it was a 5-4 vote) reflected the nation’s continued inability to resolve decisively its intellectual and emotional struggles with the larger issue of capital punishment. That juvenile offenders, those under the age of 18, are capable of calculated and brutal crimes is beyond dispute; whether such offenders should be sentenced to death is an entirely other matter.
For many years, legal scholars, social activists and others have debated the merits of the criminal justice system with respect to adults and juveniles alike. The fact that juveniles, especially those age 16 and older, are capable of levels of barbarity equal to that displayed by adult offenders does not, however, mean that the sentencing of juveniles should mirror that of adults. Writing for the majority in Roper v. Simmons, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted,

“When a juvenile commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.”

As studies of the human brain and its development through childhood reaffirm that the brain is not fully developed until the individual is well into adulthood, 25 years of age to be precise, the rationale for limiting application of the death penalty to exclude those whose mental development has not reached maturity has been strengthened considerably. Just as the death penalty was banned under another, earlier, Supreme Court decision (Ford v. Wainwright, 1986) in the case of the mentally impaired, the prohibition on the execution of juveniles reflects recognition that a physical incapacity to make considered decisions is lacking in many cases.
Whereas the issue of executing juveniles can be considered relatively simple, the issue of incarcerating juveniles for years, or even for life, after they become adults is far more complicated. Youthful indiscretions are not the issue here; serious crimes like murder, rape, armed robbery, and other felonies are carried out by teenagers who understand the distinction between right and wrong and who are fully cognizant of the nature of their acts. In some cases, lifetime incarceration is warranted. The financial cost to the state of incarcerating an individual for the duration of his or her life is high, but public safety and justice sometimes demand such costs be paid.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-633.ZS.html