Roper v. Simmons, S.Ct., 2005
Edited by Christopher J. Enge
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion
of the Court.
This case
requires us to address, for the second time in a decade and a half, whether it
is permissible under the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States to execute a juvenile
offender who was older than 15 but younger than 18 when he committed a capital
crime. In Stanford v.
At the age of
17, when he was still a junior in high school, Christopher Simmons, the
respondent here, committed murder. About nine months later, after he had turned
18, he was tried and sentenced to death. There is little doubt that Simmons was
the instigator of the crime. Before its commission Simmons said he wanted to
murder someone. In chilling, callous terms he talked about his plan, discussing
it for the most part with two friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, then aged 15 and 16 respectively. Simmons proposed
to commit burglary and murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim, and
throwing the victim off a bridge. Simmons assured his friends they could “get
away with it” because they were minors.
The
three met at about 2 a.m. on the night of the murder, but Tessmer
left before the other two set out. (The State later charged Tessmer
with conspiracy, but dropped the charge in exchange for his testimony against
Simmons.) Simmons and Benjamin entered the home of the victim, Shirley Crook,
after reaching through an open window and unlocking the back door. Simmons
turned on a hallway light. Awakened, Mrs. Crook called out, “Who’s there?” In
response Simmons entered Mrs. Crook’s bedroom, where he recognized her from a
previous car accident involving them both. Simmons later admitted this
confirmed his resolve to murder her.
Using
duct tape to cover her eyes and mouth and bind her hands, the two perpetrators
put Mrs. Crook in her minivan and drove to a state park. They reinforced the
bindings, covered her head with a towel, and walked her to a railroad trestle
spanning the
By
the afternoon of September 9, Steven Crook had returned home from an overnight
trip, found his bedroom in disarray, and reported his wife missing. On the same
afternoon fishermen recovered the victim’s body from the river. Simmons,
meanwhile, was bragging about the killing, telling friends he had killed a
woman “because the bitch seen my face.
* * * *
During closing arguments, both the
prosecutor and defense counsel addressed Simmons’ age, which the trial judge
had instructed the jurors they could consider as a mitigating factor. Defense
counsel reminded the jurors that juveniles of Simmons’ age cannot drink, serve
on juries, or even see certain movies, because “the legislatures have wisely
decided that individuals of a certain age aren’t responsible enough.” Defense
counsel argued that Simmons’ age should make “a huge difference to [the jurors]
in deciding just exactly what sort of punishment to make.” In rebuttal, the
prosecutor gave the following response: “Age, he says. Think about age.
Seventeen years old. Isn’t that scary? Doesn’t that scare you? Mitigating?
Quite the contrary I submit. Quite the contrary.”
The jury
recommended the death penalty after finding the State had proved each of the
three aggravating factors submitted to it. Accepting the jury’s recommendation,
the trial judge imposed the death penalty.
* * * *
The prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments,” like
other expansive language in the Constitution, must be interpreted according to
its text, by considering history, tradition, and precedent, and with due regard
for its purpose and function in the constitutional design. To implement this
framework we have established the propriety and affirmed the necessity of
referring to “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a
maturing society” to determine which punishments are so disproportionate as to
be cruel and unusual. Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S.
86, 100—101 (1958) (plurality opinion).
* * * *
The evidence of national consensus against the death penalty for
juveniles is similar, and in some respects parallel, to the evidence Atkins
held sufficient to demonstrate a national consensus against the death penalty
for the mentally retarded. When Atkins was decided, 30 States prohibited
the death penalty for the mentally retarded. This number comprised 12 that had
abandoned the death penalty altogether, and 18 that maintained it but excluded
the mentally retarded from its reach. 536
* * * *
A majority of States have rejected the
imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders under 18, and we now hold
this is required by the Eighth
Amendment.
Because
the death penalty is the most severe punishment, the Eighth
Amendment applies to it with special force. Thompson,
487
*
* * *
Three general differences between
juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with
reliability be classified among the worst offenders. First, as any parent knows
and as the scientific and sociological studies respondent and his amici cite tend to confirm, “[a] lack of maturity
and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often
than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities
often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.”
* * * *
The second area of difference is that juveniles are more
vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures,
including peer pressure.
* * * *
The
third broad difference is that the character of a juvenile is not as well
formed as that of an adult. The personality traits of juveniles are more
transitory, less fixed. See generally E. Erikson,
Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968).
These differences render suspect any
conclusion that a juvenile falls among the worst offenders. The susceptibility
of juveniles to immature and irresponsible behavior means “their irresponsible
conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.”
*
* * *
As for deterrence, it is unclear whether the death penalty
has a significant or even measurable deterrent effect on juveniles, as counsel
for the petitioner acknowledged at oral argument.
* * * *
Our determination that the death penalty is
disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18 finds confirmation in the
stark reality that the
* * * *
Respondent and his amici
have submitted, and petitioner does not contest, that only seven countries
other than the
* * * *
O’Connor, J., Dissenting
The Court’s
decision today establishes a categorical rule forbidding the execution of any
offender for any crime committed before his 18th birthday, no matter how
deliberate, wanton, or cruel the offense. Neither the objective evidence of
contemporary societal values, nor the Court’s moral proportionality analysis,
nor the two in tandem suffice to justify this ruling.
Although
the Court finds support for its decision in the fact that a majority of the
States now disallow capital punishment of 17-year-old offenders, it refrains
from asserting that its holding is compelled by a genuine national consensus.
Indeed, the evidence before us fails to demonstrate conclusively that any such
consensus has emerged in the brief period since we upheld the constitutionality
of this practice in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S.
361 (1989).
Instead,
the rule decreed by the Court rests, ultimately, on its independent moral
judgment that death is a disproportionately severe punishment for any
17-year-old offender. I do not subscribe to this judgment. Adolescents as a
class are undoubtedly less mature, and therefore less culpable for their
misconduct, than adults. But the Court has adduced no evidence impeaching the
seemingly reasonable conclusion reached by many state legislatures: that at
least some 17-year-old murderers are sufficiently mature to deserve the
death penalty in an appropriate case. Nor has it been shown that capital
sentencing juries are incapable of accurately assessing a youthful defendant’s
maturity or of giving due weight to the mitigating characteristics associated
with youth.
On
this record–and especially in light of the fact that so little has changed
since our recent decision in Stanford–I would not substitute our
judgment about the moral propriety of capital punishment for 17-year-old
murderers for the judgments of the Nation’s legislatures. Rather, 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.
*
* * *
Justice Scalia, with
whom The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
In urging approval of a constitution that
gave life-tenured judges the power to nullify laws enacted by the people’s
representatives, Alexander Hamilton assured the citizens of New York that there
was little risk in this, since “[t]he judiciary … ha[s] neither FORCE nor WILL
but merely judgment.”
*
* * *
In determining that capital punishment of offenders who
committed murder before age 18 is “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth
Amendment, the Court first considers, in accordance with our modern (though
in my view mistaken) jurisprudence, whether there is a “national consensus,” ibid.
(internal quotation marks omitted), that laws allowing such executions
contravene our modern “standards of decency,”1 Trop v. Dulles,
356
U.S. 86, 101 (1958).
* * * *
Words have no meaning if the views of less than 50% of death
penalty States can constitute a national consensus. See Atkins,
supra, at 342—345 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Our
previous cases have required overwhelming opposition to a challenged practice,
generally over a long period of time.
* * * *
Today’s opinion provides a perfect example of why judges are
ill equipped to make the type of legislative judgments the Court insists on
making here. To support its opinion that States should be prohibited from
imposing the death penalty on anyone who committed murder before age 18, the
Court looks to scientific and sociological studies, picking and choosing those
that support its position. It never explains why those particular studies are
methodologically sound; none was ever entered into evidence or tested in an
adversarial proceeding.
* * * *
Though the views of our own
citizens are essentially irrelevant to the Court’s decision today, the views of
other countries and the so-called international community take center stage.
* * * *
“The United States reserves the right, subject to its
Constitutional restraints, to impose capital punishment on any person (other
than a pregnant woman) duly convicted under existing or future laws permitting the
imposition of capital punishment, including such punishment for crime committed
by persons below eighteen years of age.” Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, S. Exec. Rep. No. 102—23, (1992).
Unless the Court has added to its arsenal the power to join and
ratify treaties on behalf of the
*
* * *
In fact the Court itself does not believe it. In many significant
respects the laws of most other countries differ from our law–including not
only such explicit provisions of our Constitution as the right to jury trial
and grand jury indictment, but even many interpretations of the Constitution
prescribed by this Court itself. The Court-pronounced exclusionary rule, for
example, is distinctively American.
* * * *
The Court has been oblivious to the views of other countries when
deciding how to interpret our Constitution’s requirement that “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion… .”
Amdt.
1. Most other countries–including those committed to religious neutrality–do
not insist on the degree of separation between church and state that this Court
requires. For example, whereas “we have recognized special Establishment Clause
dangers where the government makes direct money payments to sectarian
institutions,” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va.,
515
U.S. 819, 842 (1995) (citing cases), countries such as the Netherlands,
Germany, and Australia allow direct government funding of religious schools on
the ground that “the state can only be truly neutral between secular and
religious perspectives if it does not dominate the provision of so key a
service as education, and makes it possible for people to exercise their right
of religious expression within the context of public funding.”
* * * *
And let us not forget the Court’s abortion jurisprudence,
which makes us one of only six countries that allow abortion on demand until
the point of viability.
* * * *
The Court should either profess its willingness to reconsider all
these matters in light of the views of foreigners, or else it should cease
putting forth foreigners’ views as part of the reasoned basis of its
decisions. To invoke alien law when it agrees with one’s own thinking, and
ignore it otherwise, is not reasoned decision-making, but sophistry.