Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty for Juveniles

Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty for Juveniles

By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 1, 2005; 12:05 PM

The Supreme Court, in a landmark death penalty decision, today barred executions of people under 18 years of age at the time of their crimes.

By vote of 5-to-4, the court said in a case from Missouri that there is now a "consensus" in American society that juveniles, along with the mentally retarded, are "less culpable" for their crimes because they lack sound judgment.
_____Death Penalty Ruling_____
• Opinion (Roper v. Simmons)
• Case Docket
State-by-State Breakdown
From Associated Press at 11:57 AM

The state breakdown of the 72 people on death rows who were juveniles when they committed their crimes, according to the Death Penalty Information Center:

• Texas: 29
• Alabama: 14
• Mississippi: 5
• Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina: 4 each
• Florida, South Carolina: 3 each
• Georgia, Pennsylvania: 2 each
• Nevada, Virginia: 1
• Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Utah allow the execution of juveniles but do not have any on their death rows.
Death Penalty Rulings
From Associated Press at 12:09 PM

Major Supreme Court rulings on the death penalty:

-- 1972, Furman v. Georgia. The court rules the death penalty does not violate the Constitution, but the manner of its application in many states does. The court noted capital punishment was likely to be imposed in a discriminatory way and that blacks were far more likely to be executed than whites. The decision essentially ends the practice of executions.

-- 1976, Gregg vs. Georgia. A Georgia death penalty statute is held constitutional, a ruling that sets the stage for resumption of executions.

-- 1987, McCleskey vs. Georgia. Justices rule state death penalty laws are constitutional even when statistics indicate they have been applied in racially biased ways.

-- 1988, Thompson vs. Oklahoma. The court decides people younger than 16 when they committed a crime may not be executed.

-- 1989, Stanford v. Kentucky. Justices uphold the constitutionality of executions for juveniles older than 15.

-- 2002, Atkins v. Virginia. Justices rule that executing mentally retarded criminals violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens cites a "national consensus" against executing a killer who may lack the intelligence to fully understand his crime.
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Execution is therefore a "disproportionate" sanction that violates the 8th Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, the court ruled, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority.

The court had already barred executions of the mentally retarded and of children under 15 at the time of their crime. It had declined to go further until today, however, letting stand its 1989 decision that the execution of individuals who commit crimes when they are 16 or 17 did not offend the constitution.

Today the court reversed the 1989 ruling.

More broadly, the decision continues a gradual narrowing by the court during the past 30 years of the circumstances in which capital punishment may be imposed.

Only seven of the 50 states have executed juveniles in the past 30 years. Only a third of the states, including Virginia, permit imposition of the death penalty in cases involving offenders under 18.

The ruling almost certainly means that sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, convicted of capital murder in a Fairfax slaying, cannot be executed. Malvo was 17 at the time of the 2002 sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington region. He was convicted of capital murder in a Fairfax sniper slaying, but a jury spared his life. He still had faced death penalty trials in Prince William County and in Alabama, however.

Lawyers in Virginia had joined Missouri in arguing that the death penalty for teenagers is appropriate in some cases. In recent years, Virginia has executed three men who were minors when they killed. One of Virginia's current death row inmates, Shermain Johnson, now 27, was a juvenile when he committed his crime.

The court upheld a decision of Missouri's highest court overturning the death sentence given to 17-year-old Christopher Simmons, who kidnapped a neighbor in Missouri, hog-tied her and threw her off a bridge. Prosecutors say he planned the burglary and killing of Shirley Crook in 1993 and bragged that he could get away with it because of his age.

Kennedy wrote for the majority, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Dissenting were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'C0nnor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

"The fact that juveniles are generally less culpable for their misconduct than adults does not necessarily mean that a 17-year-old murderer cannot be sufficiently culpable to merit the death penalty," O'Connor wrote in dissent.