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Constitutional Law
Facts of the case: When he was seventeen, the defendant Christopher Simmons committed and was convicted of a premeditated capital murder. After he legally became an adult, he was sentenced to death. He appealed this sentencing. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Simmons and set aside the verdict in favor of a sentence of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole or release. In Stanford v. Kentucky, the court had rejected the idea that the Constitution prohibits capital punishment for crimes committed when the defendant was a juvenile, but the Missouri Supreme Court stated that "a national consensus has developed against the execution of those offenders since Stanford" (Roper, 2005, University of Cornell Law School). The State of Missouri appealed this overturning of the life sentence.
Issue: Can the state execute defendants for crimes they committed when they were under the age of eighteen?
Court Decision/Answer: The U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of Simmons and declared that executing juveniles under the age of eighteen was cruel and unusual punishment.
Rationale/Reasoning for the Decision: While acknowledging that an age 'cutoff' is arbitrary to some degree, Justice Kennedy when writing for the majority suggested that society's evolving standards now held it cruel and unusual punishment to execute individuals for crimes they committed while juveniles. Kennedy referred to international as well as domestic standards in defense of the court's majority opinion. He wrote: "Our determination that the death penalty is disproportionate punishment for offenders under eighteen finds confirmation in the stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty. This reality does not become controlling, for the task of interpreting the Eighth Amendment remains our responsibility. Yet at least from the time of the Court's decision in Trop, the Court has referred to the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive for its interpretation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of 'cruel and unusual punishments'" (Roper, 2005, University of Cornell Law School).
Holding: The court overturned Stanford v. Kentucky, stating that society's mores had changed, and thus executing individuals for crimes committed while juveniles was cruel and unusual punishment.
Work Cited
Roper v. Simmons. (2005). University of Cornell Law School.
Retrieved March 31, 2009 at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-633.ZO.html
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