Roper v. Simmons Resource Page

U. S. Supreme Court: Roper v. Simmons, No. 03 – 633

Argued October 13, 2004
Decided Mar. 1, 2005 

DPIC Summary

Majority Opinion

On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments for­bid the exe­cu­tion of offend­ers who were younger than age 18 when the crime occurred. The vote was 5 – 4.

Justice Kennedy, writ­ing for the major­i­ty (Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens, JJ.) stated:

When a juve­nile offend­er com­mits a heinous crime, the State can exact for­fei­ture of some of the most basic lib­er­ties, but the State can­not extin­guish his life and his poten­tial to attain a mature under­stand­ing of his own humanity.

The Court reaf­firmed the neces­si­ty of refer­ring to ​“the evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy that mark the progress of a matur­ing soci­ety” to deter­mine which pun­ish­ments are so dis­pro­por­tion­ate as to be cru­el and unusu­al. Based on the rejec­tion of the juve­nile death penal­ty by 30 states, its infre­quent use even in those states in which it remained on the books, and the con­sis­tent trend in the states toward abo­li­tion of the prac­tice, the Court found that a nation­al con­sen­sus had evolved against the prac­tice. The Court deter­mined that today our soci­ety views juve­niles as cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly less cul­pa­ble than the average criminal.

Reliance on Atkins

The Court out­lined the sim­i­lar­i­ties between its analy­sis of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing juve­nile offend­ers and the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed. Prior to 2002, the Court had refused to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly exempt men­tal­ly retard­ed per­sons from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989). However, in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), the Court held that stan­dards of decen­cy had evolved in the 13 years since Penry and that a nation­al con­sen­sus had formed against such exe­cu­tions, demon­strat­ing that the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed is cru­el and unusual punishment.

Before this his­toric rul­ing, the Court con­clud­ed in 1989 in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), that the exe­cu­tion of 16- and 17-year-old offend­ers was not con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly barred. The Court now con­cludes that since Stanford, a nation­al con­sen­sus has formed against the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers, and the prac­tice vio­lates society’s ​“evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy.” The Court over­ruled its deci­sion in Stanford, there­by set­ting the min­i­mum age for eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty at 18.

The Court explained that the pri­ma­ry cri­te­ri­on for deter­min­ing whether a par­tic­u­lar pun­ish­ment vio­lates society’s evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy is objec­tive evi­dence of a nation­al con­sen­sus as expressed by leg­isla­tive enact­ments and jury prac­tices. The major­i­ty opin­ion found sig­nif­i­cant that 30 states pro­hib­it the juve­nile death penal­ty, includ­ing 12 that have reject­ed the death penal­ty alto­geth­er. The Court count­ed the states with no death penal­ty, point­ing out that ​“a State’s deci­sion to bar the death penal­ty alto­geth­er of neces­si­ty demon­strates a judg­ment that the death penal­ty is inap­pro­pri­ate for all offend­ers, includ­ing juve­niles. The Court fur­ther not­ed that juries sen­tenced juve­nile offend­ers to death only in rare cas­es and the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles is infre­quent. The Court found a con­sis­tent trend toward abo­li­tion of the prac­tice of exe­cut­ing juve­niles and ruled that the impro­pri­ety of exe­cut­ing juve­niles has gained wide recognition.

In addi­tion to con­sid­er­ing evi­dence of a nation­al con­sen­sus as expressed by leg­isla­tive enact­ments and jury prac­tices, the court rec­og­nized that it must also apply its own inde­pen­dent judg­ment in deter­min­ing whether a par­tic­u­lar pun­ish­ment is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly severe. When rul­ing that juve­nile offend­ers can­not with reli­a­bil­i­ty be clas­si­fied as among the worst offend­ers, the Court found sig­nif­i­cant that juve­niles are vul­ner­a­ble to influ­ence, and sus­cep­ti­ble to imma­ture and irre­spon­si­ble behav­ior. In light of juve­niles’ dimin­ished cul­pa­bil­i­ty, nei­ther ret­ri­bu­tion nor deter­rence pro­vides ade­quate jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for impos­ing the death penalty.

Justice Kennedy, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, said:

Retribution is not pro­por­tion­al if the law’s most severe penal­ty is imposed on one whose cul­pa­bil­i­ty or blame­wor­thi­ness is dimin­ished, to a sub­stan­tial degree, by rea­son of youth and immaturity.

International Confirmation

The Court fur­ther not­ed that that the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers vio­lat­ed sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al treaties, includ­ing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and stat­ed that the over­whelm­ing weight of inter­na­tion­al opin­ion against the juve­nile death penal­ty pro­vides con­fir­ma­tion for the Court’s own con­clu­sion that the death penal­ty is dis­pro­por­tion­al pun­ish­ment for offend­ers under 18.

Concurring Opinion

Justice Stevens wrote a con­cur­ring opin­ion, joined by Justice Ginsburg, stating:

Perhaps even more impor­tant than our spe­cif­ic hold­ing today is our reaf­fir­ma­tion of the basic prin­ci­ple that informs the Court’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the Eighth Amendment. If the mean­ing of that Amendment had been frozen when it was orig­i­nal­ly draft­ed, it would impose no imped­i­ment to the exe­cu­tion of 7‑year-old children today.

O’Connor’s Dissent

Justice O’Connor dis­sent­ed, crit­i­ciz­ing the Missouri Supreme Court for fail­ing to fol­low the prece­dent estab­lished by the U.S. Supreme Court in Stanford (before the Supreme Court over­ruled Stanford, the Missouri court in this case con­clud­ed that stan­dards of decen­cy had evolved such that exe­cut­ing juve­niles was no longer con­sti­tu­tion­al). O’Connor agreed that objec­tive evi­dence pre­sent­ed in Simmons was sim­i­lar to that pre­sent­ed in Atkins, but while there was no sup­port for the prac­tice of exe­cut­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed, at least eight states had con­sid­ered and adopt­ed leg­is­la­tion per­mit­ting the exe­cu­tion of 16- and 17-year-old offend­ers. O’Connor argued that the dif­fer­ence in matu­ri­ty between adults and juve­niles was nei­ther uni­ver­sal nor sig­nif­i­cant enough to jus­ti­fy a rule exclud­ing juve­niles from the death penal­ty. Justice O’Connor did rec­og­nize the rel­e­vance of inter­na­tion­al law, and express­ly reject­ed Justice Scalia’s con­tention that inter­na­tion­al law has no place in eval­u­at­ing Eighth Amendment claims.

Scalia’s Dissent

Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas and Chief Justice Rehnquist, also dis­sent­ed, argu­ing that the Court improp­er­ly sub­sti­tut­ed its own judg­ment for that of the peo­ple in out­law­ing exe­cu­tions of juve­nile offend­ers. He crit­i­cized the major­i­ty for count­ing non-death penal­ty states toward a nation­al con­sen­sus against juve­nile exe­cu­tions. Scalia also reject­ed the Court’s use of inter­na­tion­al law to con­firm its find­ing of a nation­al con­sen­sus, stat­ing that “‘Acknowledgement’ of for­eign approval has no place in the legal opin­ion of this Court …” Like Justice O’Connor, Scalia crit­i­cized the Court for fail­ing to admon­ish the Missouri Court for its ​“fla­grant dis­re­gard” of the Court’s rul­ing in Stanford.

The Court’s rul­ing in Roper v. Simmons affect­ed 72 juve­nile offend­ers in 12 states.

Read the Supreme Court Opinion (March 1, 2005). See also Supreme Court and Juvenile Death Penalty.