Kansas City Star

July 27, 2004

Editorial

Christopher Simmons was 17 and should have just grad­u­at­ed from high school at the time a Missouri jury sen­tenced him to death. A decade lat­er, his sen­tence is the sub­ject of a U.S. Supreme Court case, sched­uled for oral argu­ments in the fall.

Justices would erase an out­rage by abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty for peo­ple who com­mit crimes as juve­niles. Besides the United States, only China, Pakistan, Iran and the Democratic Republic of the Congo per­mit exe­cu­tions for offens­es by 16- and 17-year-olds. In this coun­try, 31 states, includ­ing Kansas, have laws exempt­ing juve­niles from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

The Missouri Supreme Court tried to move the state in the right direc­tion last year by rul­ing that the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers vio­lat­ed the state con­sti­tu­tion’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. That rul­ing relied on a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion that out­lawed the exe­cu­tion of offend­ers who are men­tal­ly retard­ed. The state judges con­tend­ed that the ​“nation­al con­sen­sus” against exe­cut­ing peo­ple who are men­tal­ly retard­ed also applied to juve­niles.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, nev­er one to let the chance of an exe­cu­tion slip away with­out a fight, appealed the state Supreme Court deci­sion. He said it was the leg­is­la­ture’s job to decide legal ages for the death penal­ty.

A broad coali­tion of reli­gious, med­ical and psy­chi­atric groups have filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court appeal­ing for a ban on exe­cu­tions for crimes com­mit­ted by juve­niles. These groups pre­sent­ed com­pelling tes­ti­mo­ny that juve­niles have less capac­i­ty than adults to rea­son and con­sid­er con­se­quences.

The court also received briefs from the European Union and dozens of coun­tries, includ­ing Canada and Mexico. They con­tend­ed that the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles iso­lat­ed the United States from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

If his death sen­tence were revoked, Simmons would still spend the rest of his life in prison for the heinous 1993 mur­der of Shirley Crook, 46. No court rul­ing can right that enor­mous wrong. But cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for crimes com­mit­ted by the young is anoth­er wrong — one that Supreme Court jus­tices can stop.

Sources

Kansas City Star