U.S. Supreme Court today voted 5-4 to outlaw executions of murderers who were under 18 at the time of the crime, saying the practice violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"Juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders,"..."stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty." Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter voted the majority. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented.
"Judges are ill-equipped to make the type of legislative judgments the court insists on making here," Scalia
"I would demand a clearer showing that our society truly has set its face against this practice before reading the Eighth Amendment categorically to forbid it," O'Connor
"The basic premise of the court's argument -- that American law should conform to the laws of the rest of the world -- ought to be rejected out of hand," Scalia
Proceedings and Orders, more background at Juvenile Death Penalty Banned by U.S. Supreme Court (Update5)
Roper v. Simmons Docket No. 03-633 PDF Format
Argued October 13, 2004—Decided March 1, 2005 At age 17, respondent Simmons planned and committed a capital murder. After he had turned 18, he was sentenced to death. His direct appeal and subsequent petitions for state and federal postconviction relief were rejected.
This Court then held, in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, that the Eighth Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the execution of a mentally retarded person. Simmons filed a new petition for state postconviction relief, arguing that Atkins’ reasoning established that the Constitution prohibits the execution of a juvenile who was under 18 when he committed his crime.
The Missouri Supreme Court agreed and set aside Simmons’ death sentence in favor of life imprisonment without eligibility for release. It held that, although Stanford
v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, rejected the proposition that the Constitution bars capital punishment for juvenile offenders younger than 18, a national consensus has developed against the execution of those offenders since Stanford. Held: 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. Pp. 6–25 FULL TEXT IB PDF Format 67 pages No. 03–633.
