Teen’s sen­tence could be fate worse than death

Chicago Sun-Times

October 26, 2004

Editorial

In 1993, 17-year-old Christopher Simmons and Charlie Benjamin, 15, broke into the home of Shirley Crook. They bound her hands, cov­ered her face with duct tape, took her to a rail­road tres­tle span­ning the Meramec River out­side St. Louis. There they hog-tied her with elec­tri­cal wire and pushed her into the water.

Benjamin was too young to be sen­tenced to death, but Simmons was­n’t. He was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on May 1, 2002. An appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court vacat­ed his death sen­tence in favor of life impris­on­ment, cit­ing the 8^th Amendment and say­ing juve­nile exe­cu­tions vio­late ​“evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy.” The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Simmons’ cold-blood­ed mur­der of Crook is dis­turb­ing. But so are the details of his life. His alco­holic step­fa­ther sadis­ti­cal­ly bru­tal­ized him; his moth­er was too afraid of her sec­ond hus­band to step in to pro­tect her child. Simmons was essen­tial­ly aban­doned by all the adults around him. He tried to escape through drink and drugs. The clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist who exam­ined him said Simmons had a men­tal dis­or­der. This does not excuse his vio­lence, but it does under­line what the Missouri court under­stood as the fragili­ty and imma­tu­ri­ty of the adolescent mind.

Psychologists, behav­ioral sci­en­tists and biol­o­gists agree ado­les­cents do not have a devel­oped abil­i­ty to rea­son. They are wired to behave more irra­tional­ly. In 1989 the U.S. Supreme Court deter­mined cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for those 15 and under should be banned because they are not moral­ly cul­pa­ble. Only 22 states allow the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles, and polls show most Americans are opposed to it. We don’t allow teens to vote until they are 18; they can’t be draft­ed into the mil­i­tary or enter into a con­tract until then. The American Bar Association, the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University and oth­er legal and human rights groups have asked for clemen­cy in Simmons’ case. We agree: He should spend the rest of his days in prison think­ing about his crime.