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Criminal Procedure Keyed to Ohlin
Roper v. Simmons
Citation:
543 U.S. 551 (2005)Facts
At the age of 17, when he was still a junior in high school, Christopher Simmons, the respondent here, committed murder. About nine months later, after he had turned 18, he was tried and sentenced to death. Before its commission, Simmons said he wanted to murder someone. In callous terms, he talked about his plan, discussing it for the most part with two friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, then aged 15 and 16 respectively. Using duct tape to cover Shirley Crook’s eyes and mouth and bind her hands, the two perpetrators put Mrs. Crook in her minivan and drove to a state park. On the same afternoon fishermen recovered the victim’s body from the river. Simmons was bragging about the killing. Petitioners argue that it is impermissible to execute a juvenile offender who was older than 15 but younger than 18 when he committed a capital crime.
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