Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18. The 5–4 decision overruled Stanford v. Kentucky, in which the court had upheld execution of offenders at or above age 16. Roper overturned statutes in 19 states.
In a line of cases reaching back to Weems v. United States (1910) the Supreme Court has elaborated that the Eighth Amendment protects the dignity of all persons, "even those convicted of heinous crimes". Excessive and disproportionate punishments are prohibited as cruel and unusual punishment by the Court's precedent. The Court has applied an "evolving standards of decency" test to decide which punishments are unconstitutionally excessive.
The Court has limited the death penalty to offenders who commit the "most serious crimes" and who are "the most deserving of execution" based on their culpability and blameworthiness. The Supreme Court has restricted death sentences by crime (see Coker v. Georgia and Enmund v. Florida) and class of offender (see Thompson v. Oklahoma, Ford v. Wainwright and Atkins v. Virginia).
When the Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia that decision was justified by retributive and deterrent purposes of state death penalty statutes. When Atkins was decided in 2002 the Court, quoting from Coker v. Georgia, brought its own judgment "to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment" and decided that diminished personal capacity makes the death penalty an excessive punishment for the intellectually disabled because the public purposes of retribution and deterrence are not served by executing the mentally impaired.
In 1987, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of American States found in Roach and Pinkerton v. United States that the United States is violating their human rights under Article I, VII, XXVI of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man by executing them for crimes committed under the age of 18.
In 1988, a plurality barred execution of offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma. The following year 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 court found there was no national consensus that the execution of older adolescents was cruel and unusual under "evolving standards of decency" because the sentence was still permitted by a majority of death penalty jurisdictions. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, concurring in the Stanford judgment, was critical of the plurality's refusal "to judge whether the nexus between the punishment imposed and the defendant's blameworthiness is proportional."
In the Roper decision, Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the Stanford plurality had failed “to bring its independent judgment to bear on the proportionality of the death penalty for a particular class of...offenders". Finding that "penological justifications for the death penalty apply to [juveniles] with lesser force than to adults", The Court reversed Stanford.
In the state of Missouri in 1993, 17-year-old Christopher Simmons concocted a plan to commit burglary and murder, having previously told friends that he "wanted to kill someone" and that he believed he could "get away with it" because he was a juvenile. Simmons convinced two of his friends to join him: 15-year-old Charles Benjamin and 16-year-old John Tessmer. On September 9, Simmons met with Benjamin and Tessmer at 2 a.m. to carry out their plan, but Tessmer decided to leave before any crimes were committed. Simmons and Benjamin later broke into the home of Shirley Crook, a 46-year-old neighbor, where they duct-taped her mouth and eyes shut before abducting her in her van. Simmons drove Crook's van to Castlewood State Park and parked near a railroad trestle bridge, where Simmons and Benjamin unloaded Crook from the van. They then covered her head with a towel, wrapped her in electrical wire, and threw her off of the trestle bridge into the Meramec River while she was still alive and conscious. Crook's body was discovered that afternoon by a group of fishermen.
Hub AI
Roper v. Simmons AI simulator
(@Roper v. Simmons_simulator)
Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18. The 5–4 decision overruled Stanford v. Kentucky, in which the court had upheld execution of offenders at or above age 16. Roper overturned statutes in 19 states.
In a line of cases reaching back to Weems v. United States (1910) the Supreme Court has elaborated that the Eighth Amendment protects the dignity of all persons, "even those convicted of heinous crimes". Excessive and disproportionate punishments are prohibited as cruel and unusual punishment by the Court's precedent. The Court has applied an "evolving standards of decency" test to decide which punishments are unconstitutionally excessive.
The Court has limited the death penalty to offenders who commit the "most serious crimes" and who are "the most deserving of execution" based on their culpability and blameworthiness. The Supreme Court has restricted death sentences by crime (see Coker v. Georgia and Enmund v. Florida) and class of offender (see Thompson v. Oklahoma, Ford v. Wainwright and Atkins v. Virginia).
When the Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia that decision was justified by retributive and deterrent purposes of state death penalty statutes. When Atkins was decided in 2002 the Court, quoting from Coker v. Georgia, brought its own judgment "to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment" and decided that diminished personal capacity makes the death penalty an excessive punishment for the intellectually disabled because the public purposes of retribution and deterrence are not served by executing the mentally impaired.
In 1987, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of American States found in Roach and Pinkerton v. United States that the United States is violating their human rights under Article I, VII, XXVI of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man by executing them for crimes committed under the age of 18.
In 1988, a plurality barred execution of offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma. The following year 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 court found there was no national consensus that the execution of older adolescents was cruel and unusual under "evolving standards of decency" because the sentence was still permitted by a majority of death penalty jurisdictions. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, concurring in the Stanford judgment, was critical of the plurality's refusal "to judge whether the nexus between the punishment imposed and the defendant's blameworthiness is proportional."
In the Roper decision, Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the Stanford plurality had failed “to bring its independent judgment to bear on the proportionality of the death penalty for a particular class of...offenders". Finding that "penological justifications for the death penalty apply to [juveniles] with lesser force than to adults", The Court reversed Stanford.
In the state of Missouri in 1993, 17-year-old Christopher Simmons concocted a plan to commit burglary and murder, having previously told friends that he "wanted to kill someone" and that he believed he could "get away with it" because he was a juvenile. Simmons convinced two of his friends to join him: 15-year-old Charles Benjamin and 16-year-old John Tessmer. On September 9, Simmons met with Benjamin and Tessmer at 2 a.m. to carry out their plan, but Tessmer decided to leave before any crimes were committed. Simmons and Benjamin later broke into the home of Shirley Crook, a 46-year-old neighbor, where they duct-taped her mouth and eyes shut before abducting her in her van. Simmons drove Crook's van to Castlewood State Park and parked near a railroad trestle bridge, where Simmons and Benjamin unloaded Crook from the van. They then covered her head with a towel, wrapped her in electrical wire, and threw her off of the trestle bridge into the Meramec River while she was still alive and conscious. Crook's body was discovered that afternoon by a group of fishermen.