Roper Vs Simmons Essay

In the case of Roper v. Simmons, Christopher Simmons, a 17-year-old, was sentenced to death for murder. Before the crime was committed, Simmons shared his plan of wanting to murder someone by breaking into a home, tying up a victim and throwing them off the bridge. Later on, Christopher Simmons and Charles Benjamin, broke into the home of Mrs. Crook, while her husband was not there. Upon entering the house, Simmons and Benjamin used duct tape to cover the eyes and mouth of the victim and tied her hands together. As time progressed, both Simmons and Benjamin, transported her in a minivan to a railroad trestle, which is where they threw Mrs. Crook off the bridge to her death. When Simmons was taken in for the crime, he was assessed by a clinical

Virginia, a petition was filed with the Missouri Supreme Court for post-conviction relief arguing that the reasoning in the Atkins case recognized that the Constitution prevented the implementation of a minor when the crime was committed. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Simmons under the notions made in Stanford v. Kentucky in 1989. In the case of Stanford v. Kentucky, a national consensus developed against the implementation of capital punishment on juvenile criminals. With this case the Supreme Court sanctioned the death penalty on offenders who were sixteen years old or younger at the time of the crime. In turn, “eighteen states now bar such executions for juveniles and twelve other states bar executions altogether" (Stanford v. Kentucky,1989). Then, " no state has lowered its age of execution below 18 since Stanford, five states have legislatively or by case law raised or established the minimum age at 18" (Stanford v. Kentucky,1989). Finally, "the imposition of the juvenile death penalty has become truly unusual over the last decade.” (Stanford v. Kentucky, 1989). For this reason, the national consensus criticisms against juvenile executions were made parallel to that of the mentally