Describe the case that eliminated the death penalty for juveniles, include the courts reasoning.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The death penalty for juveniles was ruled unconstitutional in Roper v. Simmons (2005). The Court redrew the age line at 18, under which it was constitutionally impermissible to execute?anyone. Christopher Simmons was 17 when he and two younger accomplices broke into a home, kidnapped the owner, beat her, and threw her alive from a high bridge into the river below where she drowned. Simmons had told many of his friends before the crime that he wanted to commit a murder, and he bragged about it to them afterward. His crime was a “classical” death penalty case—premeditated, deliberate, and cruel, and he was totally unremorseful. Nevertheless, his sentence drew condemnation from around the world, with amicus curiae (“friend of the court” briefs presented to the Court arguing in support of one side or the other by interested parties not directly involved with the case) being filed in favor of Simmons by the European Union, the American and British Bar Associations, the American Medical and Psychological Associations, along with 15 Nobel Prize winners, among others. In a 5 to 4 opinion, Justice Kennedy noted that the United States was the only country in the world that gives official sanction to the juvenile death penalty. He also noted the growing body of evidence from neuroscience about the immaturity of the adolescent brain. The majority opinion also cited Atkins v. Virginia (2002). In noting that the Court in Atkins had ruled the execution of the mentally disabled to be cruel and unusual punishment because of the lesser degree of culpability attached to the mentally challenged, it reasoned that such logic should be applied to juveniles. The Court also pointed out that the plurality of states (30) either bar execution for juveniles or have banned the death penalty altogether, thus citing state legislation as part of the impetus behind its decision.