Rove also denounced last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling Roper v. Simmons in which five justices ruled that convicted murderers under the age of 18 could not be put to death. Rove noted that 20 states allowed capital punishment for those under 18 and argued that the high court was depriving those states of the right to self-government.

Minors can't vote and they don't have much money and they don't really read the paper anyway, so the papers run sensationalistic stories on youth crime because it speaks to their target market. Local corrupt politicians want to speak to that market too, so they pass laws cracking down on young people and especially young criminals. They crack down and crack down and crack down, year after year although it really doesn't have any effect. It makes good press. It keeps people elected.
Karl Rove wants to electocute people who are too "immature" to buy a beer or vote in an election or be outside after 11PM. When Breyer mentioned the fact that we're one of the only places left in the world that does this he was simply trying to prove that he isn't crazy. However, I view this in a slightly different light. I think this is one area in which the United States, up until Roper, could be viewed as primitive and backward. There is a reason that everyone else on the planet thinks this is immoral. It IS immoral. It is a brutal and primitive practice that most societies have outgrown. By leading the charge back to this Rove bares the banner of immorality.
When the federalist society talks about "limited government" what they mean is "limited (federal) government." The fact that the "federal" part is silent is the big lie of the right. They don't want individual liberty. They want unlimited state government, so their networks of old boys who are too corrupt or too stupid to make it on a federal level can oppress the crap out of people back home without any interference from those damn feds.