3/1/2005: Today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Roper v. Simmons, a case from the state of Missouri, that people who committed capital crimes when they were under the age of 18 may not be sentenced to death. By vote of 5–4, the court said 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. The justices said that the "Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed." There are over 70 people on death row in the United States who were sentenced based on crimes they committed when they were under 18 years old.

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