Teen Death Penalty
Facts
Roper v. Simmons
Please Note: The following points are taken from the briefs (1) of the petitioner, Roper, and the respondent, Simmons, that were filed in the U.S. Supreme Court case Roper v. Simmons.
Facts
In 1993, Christopher Simmons and two of his friends, broke into the house of a Mrs. Crook, with the intention of burglarizing it. He was seventeen years old. When Mrs. Crook awoke, Simmons recognized that she was an individual with whom he had been involved in an auto accident. Fearing that she would recognize him, Simmons and his friends bound Mrs. Crook with duct tape. They forced her into a vehicle, and drove to a bridge.
By the time the vehicle arrived at the bridge, Mrs. Crook managed to partially free herself. When Simmons and his friends saw this, they once again tied her up in duct tape and pushed her into the river. She drowned shortly after hitting the water. Simmons and his friends then returned home. Mrs. Crook's body was later discovered downstream.
Simmons was apprehended by the police within a short period of time. He confessed to the crime. Despite evidence that he had abused drugs and alcohol and, in general, had an abusive childhood, he was sentenced to death. Until 2002, the courts that reviewed his case refused to overturn his death sentence. In August 2002, however, the Missouri Supreme Court held that, given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the Supreme Court would likely conclude that "evolving standards of decency" now prevent the execution of persons for crimes that they committed under 18 years of age, and thus overrule Stanford v. Virginia (1989). Therefore, the Missouri Supreme Court held that Stanford is overruled and that the Eighth Amendment now prevents the execution of persons for crimes that they committed before 18 years of age. The State of Missouri, in the person of Roper, the warden of the correctional institution in which Simmons is imprisoned, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear this case–challenging both: 1) the Missouri Supreme Court's ability to overturn U.S. Supreme Court precedent and 2) Simmons' (main) argument that his execution for a crime that he committed at age 17 violates the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in order to consider the following two issues:
Issues
Issue One: May a lower court overrule a precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court (before the U.S. Supreme Court does so) when it appears that the U.S. Supreme Court would likely overrule the precedent itself if given the opportunity to do so?
Issue Two: Whether the execution of an individual for murder who was seventeen years old at the time of the commission of the crime violates the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
- Including the petitioner's, Roper's, reply brief and the Appendix attached to the brief of the respondent, Simmons.
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