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Roper V. Simmons Criminal Justice Case

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Christopher Simmons was a seventeen year old juvenile from Missouri whom in 1993 along with two of his friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, planned to rob and murder Shirley Crook in her home (Roper v. Simmons, 2004). On the night the crime was to be committed, Tessmer pulled out of the plan, and Simmons and Benjamin would continue on as planned. The two broke into the Ms. Crook’s home, robbed her, tied her up, covered up her eyes, then drove her to a state park and threw her off a bridge. During the trial, evidence, videotaped reenactment and testimony outlining the premeditated plan, allowed for the jury to easily convict Simmons of the crime. Even though Simmons had no previous criminal record and was a minor at the time the crime was committed, …show more content…

Additionally, the Court looked into capital punishment practices in other countries. At the time they began hearing the case, the United States was the only country that still had the death penalty as an available sentencing option for juveniles who were found guilty of murder (Arvin, 2005). Justice Scalia, Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Thomas, and Justice O’Connor had a dissenting opinion of the case (Williams, 2005). The dissent was primarily questioning if there was now a national consensus that juveniles would not be sentenced to death. Justices Scalia and Thomas questioned whether the consensus was even relevant and if the execution of juveniles was considered cruel and unusual punishment at the time that the Bill of Rights was enacted. Additionally, Justice Scalia felt that the Court’s review of international law has no determination of how the Constitution was interpreted (Frank, 2007). He argued that the Court should rule on what the law determines is legal and not how the law should read and any changes should be enacted by the legislature and not the Court themselves. Justice Kennedy, Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer held the

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Even when Michael’s new defense team, through the innocence project, found a crime that was eerily similar to the method of murder and subsequent events to the one that Michael was convicted of, the new prosecutor in Williamson County fought hard to keep DNA testing from taking place, even stating that they objected to the testing now because the defense hadn’t requested it before (Morton, 2014). There was further evidence of ineffectiveness in that the coroner who’d changed his estimated time of death between the autopsy and trial, had come under scrutiny for his findings in this case, as well as several others, with claims of gross errors “including one case where he came to the conclusion that a man who’d been stabbed in the back had committed suicide” (Morton, 2014). This was only one of the many injustices that were committed against Michael Morton throughout his trial. In August of 2006, the defense was finally granted permission to perform DNA testing on the items that had been taken from his wife’s body (Morton, 2014). Although this testing did not reveal any information about the guilty party, it did at least give Michael the knowledge that Chris was not sexually violated before or after her death (Morton,

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Prior to the commission of the offense, Simmons expressed his desire to murder someone and talked about his plan while discussing it with his two friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, both of which were minors (Roper v. Simmons, 2015). After proposing to commit burglary and murder, Simmons assured his juvenile friends that they would “get away with it” because they were minors (Roper v. Simmons, 2015). Following that discussion, the three parties met at approximately 2:00 am with

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At the age of 17, Christopher Simmons planned and pursued his plan of kidnapping, tying up, and throwing his neighbor, Shirley Crook off of a bridge. Missouri attorneys claim that Simmons boasted about his plan of killing his neighbor. Thinking that he could get away with it because he was only 17 years old, which is not fair. But other attorneys claim that Simmons should not get the death penalty because it violates the 8th amendment. Considering Simmons still committed murder and put the innocent women to a cruel death, he should have been given the death penalty.

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In Roper v. Simmons there are two issues that must be addressed, the first being the issue of moral maturity and culpability. The defense in the trial phase of this case argued that Mr. Simmons was an at an age where he was not responsible enough to fully understand the effects and consequences of his actions. The majority draws on Atkins v. Virginia to argue that this specific precedent supports their case that the death penalty should not be imposed on the mentally immature or impaired. However, an important point to be made is that the Atkins v. Virginia decision is geared towards the clinical definition of mental retardation: significant limitations that limit adaptive skills. Also, another important question to consider is the competency and premeditation of Mr. Simmons’ crime in this case.

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All three were initially charged in connection with the incident, consequently, the conspiracy charge against John Tessmer was dropped in exchange for his testimony. The charges of burglary, theft, kidnapping, as well as murder were taken against both Christopher Simmons and Charles Benjamin. The Miranda Rights were explained to Christopher Simmons prior to the interview with the law enforcement investigators, he waived his right to counsel then confessed to the crime. At trial the prosecution presented the confession along with a video of Christopher Simmons reenacting the crime. The jury returned with a guilty verdict for the charge of murder in the first degree.

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