Teen Death Penalty
Background

The Eighth Amendment states in pertinent part that: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

In the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court put a temporary halt to executions in the United States, reasoning that the arbitrary manner in which death sentences were being imposed violated the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the U.S. Constitution (as applied to the states by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment). When a majority of the states revised their death penalty statutes to remedy the defects pointed out in Furman, i.e., unlimited jury discretion to impose a sentence of life imprisonment or death, the Supreme Court found the new statutes constitutional and permitted executions to resume in the case of Greg v. Georgia (1976).

Although Greg held that the death penalty is not unconstitutional per se, the Supreme Court has frequently been asked to rule on the constitutionality of executing different classes of individuals (i.e., the legally insane, mentally retarded, and juveniles) and the constitutionality of certain methods of execution (i.e., the electric chair). For instance, in Woodson v. North Carolina (1976), the Court ruled that mandatory death sentences are unconstitutional. Perhaps one of the most controversial areas in death penalty jurisprudence concerns the issue of who can be executed. Some of the Supreme Court’s rulings in this area are mentioned in the following cases.

• In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the Court ruled that the execution of individuals who became legally insane after sentencing, but before their execution, would violate the Eighth Amendment.
  
• In Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), the Court held that the execution of an individual for a crime (murder) that was committed when the individual was 15 years old violated the Eighth Amendment.
  
• In Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), the Court held that the execution of individuals for crimes (murders) that were committed while the individuals were 16 and 17 years old, respectively, did not violate the Eighth Amendment.
  
• Trop v. Dulles (1958) and Atkins v. Virginia (2002)
  In the case of Trop v. Dulles (1958), the Supreme Court held that a law depriving military deserters of U.S. citizenship violated the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment because it offended "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a mature society." Thus, the Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not simply prohibit punishments that were cruel and unusual at the time of its adoption in 1789, i.e., burning at the stake, but also punishments that have become "cruel and unusual" due to a change in the times and/or social attitudes.
  
• In the case of Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the Supreme Court declared that the execution of individuals who are mentally retarded, and who were so at the time they committed the crime for which they were sentenced to death, violates the Eighth Amendment. This case is significant because it expressly overrules a prior precedent of the Court, Penry v. Lynaugh (1989). In Penry, the Court addressed this same issue and held that the execution of such individuals did not violate the Constitution.

Relying on the rationale in Trop, the Court in Atkins reasoned that "evolving standards of decency" (as supported by the numerous state legislatures that changed their death penalty laws to expressly prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded in the wake of Penry) now prohibit the action that the Court earlier condoned.

In the wake of Atkins, Christopher Simmons petitioned to have his death sentence set aside. Simmons, who was sentenced to death for a murder that he committed at age 17, argued that a consensus in the U.S. now exists to show that "evolving standards of decency" prohibit the execution of individuals for crimes that they committed when they were 16 and 17 years of age, respectively–in essence, for individuals under 18 years of age. His case is known as Roper v. Simmons.

A Note on Habeas Corpus Cases
This is a habeas corpus case. When persons are convicted of crimes, they have the right to appeal their case to a higher court to make sure that the trial court did not commit errors of law (appellate courts usually will not review the facts in these cases). If individuals are not satisfied with the results of these direct appeals, they may challenge the legality of their confinement in a habeas corpus suit. Habeas corpus is Latin for "you have the body." In such a case, the Court commands an individual having custody of a prisoner (i.e. Roper, the warden of Simmons’ prison) to demonstrate that a prisoner is in custody lawfully. Traditionally, the custodian had to physically bring the prisoner into court to prove to the court that the prisoner was alive and well (hence the term "you have the body").

In essence, petitioners in habeas corpus suits are suing the government for false imprisonment, alleging that their sentence is illegal for some reason and they should consequently be released. Having lost in his direct appeals, Simmons filed this habeas corpus petition. However, he is not arguing that his conviction for murder is illegal, but only his sentence of death. If the courts agree with him, he will not be released, but only re-sentenced.

As long as the proper procedures are followed, state capital defendants may file habeas corpus proceedings in federal court if their state court claims are rejected.

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