Roper v. Simmons

Is it unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18 ?

Roper v. Simmons (2005)

What's happening today ?

Reception

. Consequences

Dissenting opinion

Decision and reasoning of the majority

Facts and Context

Summary

Facts and Context

Christopher Simmons, a 17-year-old, with two younger friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, concocted a plan to commit burglary and murder to Shirley Crook.. The three met in the middle of the night : however, Tessmer 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. Later, she drowned at the age of 46 years old.

Missouri, 1993...

Plaitiff: Superintendent Donald. P. Roper (head of police department) Simmons had confessed to the murder, performed a videotaped reenactement at the crime scene. Moreover, Tessmer testified against him and said that it was premedited. Simmons discussed about the murder in advance and later bragged about it.. The jury returned a guilty verdict and recommended a death sentence, which the trial court imposed.

Trial...

Simmons moved to the trial court to set aside the conviction and sentence citing ineffective assistance of counsel. He consider that his age, his 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.

Contestation...

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.

The Court of Appeal continue to uphold the death sentence.. However, in a case of 2002, Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death penalty for the intellectually disabled. Simmons filed a new petition for state post-conviction relief The SCOTUS of Missouri concluded, in 2002, that "a national consensus has developed against the execution of juvenile offenders" and held that such punishment violates the 8th (prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment)and 14th amendments. (protection of citizens)

Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court

In 2005, the Court held that it was cruel and unusual punishment to execute a person who was under the age of 18. It was justified by the fact that juveniles have a lack of maturity and sense of responsibility compared to adults.The studies also found that juveniles are more vulnerable to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure : they have less control. It enforces the Court's point of view, saying that mostly every states forbid people under the age of 18 to vote, to serve on juries, or to marry without parental consent .

Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988) : Barred execution of offenders under the age of 16 Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) : Upheld the possibility of capital punishment for effenders who were 16 or 17 years old when they committed the capital offense

DEcision

Dissenting opinion

- Justice Scalia criticizes the Court. He claimed the Court would "invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignore it otherwise". - Also says that the majority opinion is anti-democratic insofar as the role of judges is to interpret what the law says and not what it should say. It is up to the legislator to propose amendments to the Constitution in order to respond to changes in society and not to the judge.

=> Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas ans Justice O'Connor - Questioning the national consensus because only 18 of the 38 states that allow the death penalty forbid the execution of minors. - Question of the relevance of the consensus : the question is not whether there is a consensus on the question of the execution of minors but whether such an execution would be considered cruel and unusual to the point that the Bill of Rights was ratified

Dissenting opinion

Justice O'Connor

Justice Thomas

Justice Scalia

Chief Justice Rehnquist

Consequences and repercutions of the case

The Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons also canceled the death sentences of 72 others for crimes they committed while they were under 18.

The greatest effects were in Texas, where 29 juvenile offenders were awaiting execution, and in Alabama, where 13 on death row had been sentenced as juveniles. No other state had more than five such offenders on death row

Reception of the sentence

The majority ruling highlighted several controversies in the field of constitutional jurisprudence. It puts forward the sames arguments that Justice Scalia talked about : the notion of a "national consensus", the use of foreign laws and normes,. and the interpretation of what the law should be saying and not what it is really saying.

Controversies

And What about death penalty today ?

- The USA is one of the few liberal democratic country to allow the death penalty - In 2021, 24 federated states no longer practiced the death penalty - 5 implementation methods : lethal injection, electric chair, gas chamber, firing squad and hanging

Death penalty nowadays

Lethal Injection

Electric Chair

Gas Chamber

Firing Squad

Hanging

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Constitution for Dummies

“There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.” Friedrich Nietzsche

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