Executing juve­nile offend­ers is bar­bar­ic, ought to be ended

Springfield (Missouri) News Leader

October 16, 2004

Editorial

Christopher Simmons com­mit­ted a hor­ri­ble crime when he was 17. Simmons and an accom­plice broke into a wom­an’s home, robbed her, tied her and threw her into the Meramec River.

He should be pun­ished by spend­ing the rest of his life in prison.

His pun­ish­ment should not be the death penal­ty — the sen­tence Simmons is fac­ing.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard Simmons’ appeal. His lawyer argued, in part, that a pre­vi­ous Supreme Court rul­ing ban­ning exe­cu­tion of mod­er­ate­ly men­tal­ly retard­ed crim­i­nals should apply. This is the same rea­son­ing the Missouri Supreme Court used in over­turn­ing Simmons’ sen­tence.

The argu­ment points out that in the cas­es of the retard­ed and juve­niles, com­mon prac­tice and the laws in many states have come to view exe­cu­tion as bar­bar­ic. Further, the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent, espe­cial­ly for impul­sive teens.

Countering the argu­ment that the areas of the brain con­trol­ling impulse con­trol in juve­niles are incom­plete­ly devel­oped, Justice Antonin Scalia asked the ridicu­lous ques­tion of whether juve­nile offend­ers should be pun­ished at all.

All Americans say yes to that ques­tion. But it’s impor­tant that we also say it is wrong for the state to kill children.