the United States
Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for
crimes committed while under the age of 18.
INTERNET SOURCE:
Argued October 13,
2004
Decided March 1, 2005 |
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Full case name
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Roper v. Simmons
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Docket nos.
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Citations
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125 S. Ct. 1183; 161 L. Ed. 2d 1; 2005 U.S.
LEXIS 2200; 73 U.S.L.W. 4153; 18 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 131
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Prior history
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Defendant convicted, motion for
postconviction relief denied, Circuit Court
of Jefferson County, Missouri; affirmed, 944 S.W. 2d 165 (Mo.
1997) (en banc), certiorari denied, 522 U.S. 953 (1997). Denial of petition
for a writ of habeas corpus affirmed, 235 F. 3d 1124 (CA8), certiorari
denied, 534 U. S. 924 (2001). Petition for a writ of habeas corpus granted,
112 S.W. 3d 397 (Mo. 2003) (en banc), certiorari granted, 540 U.S. 1160
(2004)
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Argument
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Holding
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The Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who
were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed. Supreme Court of
Missouri affirmed, and Stanford v.
Kentucky overturned.
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Court membership
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Case opinions
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Majority
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Kennedy, joined by Stevens, Souter,
Ginsburg, Breyer
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Concurrence
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Stevens, joined by Ginsburg
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Dissent
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O'Connor
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Dissent
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Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, Thomas
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Laws applied
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This
case overturned a previous ruling
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Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551
(2005), was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States
held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes
committed while under the age of 18. The 5-4 decision overruled the Court's
prior ruling upholding such sentences on offenders above or at the age of 16,
in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), overturning statutes in 25
states that had the penalty set lower.
Background
This
case, in Missouri, involved Christopher Simmons, who, in 1993 at the age of 17,
concocted a plan to murder Shirley Crook, bringing two younger friends, Charles
Benjamin and John Tessmer, into the plot. The plan was to commit burglary and
murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim, and tossing the victim off
a bridge. The three met in the middle of the night; however, Tessmer then
dropped out of the plot. Simmons and Benjamin broke into Mrs. Crook's home,
bound her hands and covered her eyes. They drove her to a state park and threw
her off a bridge.
Once
the case was brought to trial, the evidence was overwhelming. Simmons had
confessed to the murder, performed a videotaped reenactment at the crime scene,
and there was testimony from Tessmer against him that showed premeditation (he
discussed the plot in advance and later bragged about the crime). The jury
returned a guilty verdict. Even considering mitigating factors (no criminal
history and his age), the jury recommended a death sentence, which the trial
court imposed. Simmons first moved for the trial court to set aside the
conviction and sentence, citing, in part, ineffective assistance of counsel.
His age, and thus impulsiveness, along with a troubled background were brought
up as issues that Simmons claimed should have been raised at the sentencing
phase. The trial court rejected the motion, and Simmons appealed.
The
case worked its way up the court system, with the courts continuing to uphold
the death sentence. However, in light of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in Atkins
v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), that overturned the death penalty for the
mentally retarded, Simmons filed a new petition for state post conviction
relief, and the Supreme Court of Missouri concluded that "a national
consensus has developed against the execution of the mentally ill," and
held that such punishment now violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of
cruel and unusual punishment. Thus, they sentenced Simmons to life imprisonment
without parole.
The
State of Missouri appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed
to hear the case. (Donald P. Roper, the Superintendent of the correctional
facility where Simmons was held, was a party to the action because it was
brought as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.)
Opinion
of the Court
This
case was argued on October 13, 2004. The appeal challenged the
constitutionality of capital punishment for persons who were juveniles when
their crimes were committed, citing the Eighth Amendment protection against
cruel and unusual punishment.
A
1988 Supreme Court decision Thompson v. Oklahoma barred execution of
offenders under the age of 16. In 1989, another case, Stanford v. Kentucky
upheld the possibility of capital punishment for offenders who were 16 or 17
years old when they committed the capital offense. The same day in 1989, the
Supreme Court ruled in the case Penry v. Lynaugh, that it was
permissible to execute the mentally retarded. However, in 2002, that decision
was overruled in Atkins v. Virginia, where the Court held that evolving
standards of decency had made the execution of the mentally retarded cruel and
unusual punishment and thus unconstitutional.
Under
the "evolving standards of decency" test, the Court held that it was
cruel and unusual punishment to execute a person who was under the age of 18 at
the time of the murder. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy cited a body
of sociological and scientific research that
found that juveniles have a lack of maturity and sense of responsibility
compared to adults. Adolescents were found to be overrepresented statistically
in virtually every category of reckless behavior. The Court noted that in
recognition of the comparative immaturity and irresponsibility of juveniles,
almost every state prohibited those under age 18 from voting, serving on
juries, or marrying without parental consent. The studies also found that
juveniles are also more vulnerable to negative influences and outside
pressures, including peer pressure. They have less control, or experience with
control, over their own environment. They also lack the freedom that adults
have, in escaping a criminogenic setting.
In
support of the "national consensus" position, the Court noted the
increasing infrequency with which states were applying capital punishment for
juvenile offenders. At the time of the decision, 20 states had
the juvenile death penalty on the books, but only six states had executed
prisoners for crimes committed as juveniles since 1989. Only three states had
done so in the past 10 years: Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. Furthermore, five
of the states that allowed the juvenile death penalty at the time of the 1989
case had since abolished it.
The
Court also looked to practices in other countries to support the holding.
Between 1990 and the time of the case, the court said, "only seven
countries other than the United States ha[d] executed juvenile offenders
... : Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, and China." Justice Kennedy noted that since 1990
each of those countries had either abolished the death penalty for juveniles or
made public disavowal of the practice, and that the United States stood alone
in allowing execution of juvenile offenders. The Court also noted that only the
United States and Somalia had not ratified Article 37 of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (September 2, 1990), which expressly
prohibits capital punishment for crimes committed by juveniles.
Dissents
Justice
Scalia wrote a dissent joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas.
Justice O’Connor also wrote a dissenting opinion. The dissents put into
question whether a “national consensus” had indeed formed among the state laws,
citing the fact that at the time of the ruling only 18 of 38 death penalty
states (47%) prohibited the execution of juveniles (the other 12 states
executed neither juveniles nor adults).
However,
the primary objection of the Court's two originalists, Justices Scalia and
Thomas, was whether such a consensus was relevant. Justice Scalia argued that
the appropriate question was not whether there was presently a consensus
against the execution of juveniles, but rather whether the execution of such
defendants was considered cruel and unusual at the point at which the Bill of
Rights was ratified.
In
addition, Justice Scalia also objected in general to the Court's willingness to
take guidance from foreign law in interpreting the Constitution; his dissent
questioned not only the relevance of foreign law but also claimed the Court
would "invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignore
it otherwise," noting that in the case of abortion U.S. laws are less
restrictive than the international norm.
Scalia
also attacked the majority opinion as being fundamentally antidemocratic. His
dissent cited a passage from the Federalist Papers in arguing that the role of
the judiciary in the constitutional scheme is to interpret the law as
formulated in democratically selected legislatures. He argued that the Court
exists to rule on what the law says, not what it should say, and
that it is for the legislature, acting in the manner prescribed in
Article V of the Constitution to offer amendments to the Constitution in light
of the evolving standard of decency, not for the Court to arbitrarily
make de facto amendments. He challenged the right of unelected lawyers
to discern moral values and to impose them on the people in the name of
flexible readings of the constitutional text.
Implications
Impact on other death row prisoners
In
addition to striking down the death sentence of Christopher Simmons, the
Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons also canceled the death
sentences of 72 others for crimes they committed while younger than age 18. The
greatest impact was in Texas, where 29 juvenile offenders were awaiting
execution, and in Alabama, where there were fourteen. No other state had more
than five such offenders on death row.
Prior
to the Roper decision, there had been 22 executions of juveniles since 1976,
thirteen of them in Texas.
Constitutional jurisprudence
The
majority ruling highlighted several controversies in the field of
constitutional jurisprudence. The first is the use of the concept of an
evolving "national consensus" to allow for the re-interpretation of
previous rulings. In this case, the evolving consensus was influenced by
behavioral and other research studies, such as those presented to the court in
an amicus brief by the American Psychological Association. What constitutes
evidence for such a consensus—and from where the judicial branch derives its
authority to determine it and implement it into law, a function
constitutionally vested in the legislative branch—especially in the case of
capital punishment, is unclear at this point. In Roper v. Simmons the
majority cited the abolishment of juvenile capital punishment in 30 states (18
of the 38 allowing capital punishment) as evidence of such a consensus. In Atkins
v. Virginia it was the "consensus" of the 30 states (18 of 38
allowing capital punishment) that had banned execution of the mildly retarded.
Another
controversy is the role of foreign laws and norms in the interpretation of U.S.
law. In 2004 Representative Tom Feeney (FL-R) introduced a non-binding
resolution instructing the judiciary to ignore foreign precedent when making their
rulings: "This resolution advises the courts they are no longer engaging
in 'good behavior' in the meaning of the Constitution and they may subject
themselves to the ultimate remedy, which would be impeachment."
Beltway sniper case
See
also: Beltway sniper attacks
The
implications of this ruling were immediately felt in the State of Virginia,
where Lee Boyd Malvo became no longer eligible for the death penalty for his
role in the Beltway sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington, D.C. area in
October 2002. At the time of the attacks, Malvo was 17 years old. Malvo had
already been spared the death penalty in his first trial for the murder of FBI
employee Linda Franklin in Falls Church, Virginia, and had pleaded guilty in
another case in Spotsylvania County; however, he had yet to face trial in
Prince William County, Virginia, as well as in Washington, D.C., Washington
state, Texas, Maryland, Louisiana, California, Arizona and Alabama. In light of
this Supreme Court decision, the prosecutors in Prince William County decided
not to pursue the charges against Malvo. At the outset of the Beltway sniper
prosecutions, the primary reason for extraditing the two suspects from
Maryland, where they were arrested, to Virginia, was the difference in how the
two states deal with the death penalty. While the death penalty is allowed in
Maryland, it is only applied to persons who were adults at the time of their
crimes, whereas Virginia had also allowed the death penalty for offenders who
had been juveniles when their crimes were committed.
Further
developments
In
Ex parte Adams, 955 So. 2d 1106 (Ala. 2005), the Supreme Court of
Alabama remanded the death sentence of a juvenile for a rehearing in the lower
court in light of the Roper decision, which was released while the Adams case
was pending appeal. Justice Tom Parker, who had participated in the prosecution
of the case, recused himself. He, however, published an op-ed in The Birmingham
News to criticize his non-recused colleagues for the decision. "State
supreme courts may decline to follow bad U.S. Supreme Court precedents because
those decisions bind only the parties to the particular case", wrote
Justice Parker.
The
State sought review in the Supreme Court, raising a single issue, "Whether
this Court should reconsider its decision in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551
(2005)." The Supreme Court denied certiorari (i.e., declined to take
the case for review) on June 19, 2006, without a published dissent.
In
Miller v. Alabama, 567 US __ (2012), in dissent, Justice Alito
wrongfully identified Donald Roper as a 17-year-old brutal thrill-killer.
Roper, in fact, was the Superintendent of the correctional facility where the murderer
(Christopher Simmons) was held.
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