BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term this Monday, and one of the first issues to be considered is: Should juveniles ever be executed? Fifteen years ago, the high court ruled that states could execute offenders as young as 16 if they chose to. But attitudes appear to be shifting. And the case now coming before the court could end that practice for good. Tim O'Brien reports
TIM O'BRIEN: It started as a burglary at this home in Fenton, Missouri, about 30 miles south of St. Louis, early on a September morning in 1993. It turned into a gruesome murder.
ED KEMP (Jefferson County Sheriff's Department): While in the home, the victim woke up, recognized both subjects. They bound her, put her in her own vehicle, transported her to a bridge, and threw her over -- alive.O'BRIEN: Acting on an informant's tip, police arrested two young suspects: 15-year-old Charlie Benjamin and 17-year-old Chris Simmons were picked up at their high school a day after the murder. After first denying any involvement, Simmons later gave a tearful confession to police:
CHRIS SIMMONS (Confessing on Tape): I had her tied up. She walked out on the bridge and [I] tied her hands and feet together -- pushed her off.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICEMAN: Who pushed her?
Mr. SIMMONS: I did.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICEMAN: Who?
Mr. SIMMONS: I did.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICEMAN: You pushed her?
Mr. SIMMONS: I did.
O'BRIEN: Simmons even re-enacted the crime for police.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICEMAN #2 (On Police Video): So, this about where you threw her off?
Mr. SIMMONS (Gesturing): Yeah.
O'BRIEN: Simmons's lawyer tried to get him to accept a deal: life in prison in exchange for a guilty plea. But Simmons wouldn't hear of it.DAVID CROSBY (Defense Attorney): Here's a child that in Missouri couldn't buy a car because he's under age to contract, and yet he makes life-and-death decisions.
O'BRIEN: It was an open-and-shut case.
JURY FOREMAN (At Trial): We the jury find the defendant, Christopher Simmons, guilty of murder in the first degree.
O'BRIEN: The younger boy was sentenced to life with no parole. Simmons, 17, got the death penalty -- the jury finding that the murder was aggravated in that it was committed to avoid detection and in the course of a kidnapping, another felony.
But a little over a year ago, the Missouri Supreme Court set aside Simmons's death sentence, reducing it to life in prison with no parole. The court held it violates this country's evolving standards of decency to execute anyone who was under 18 at the time of the crime -- that it may have been permissible in the past, but that now it conflicts with the Eighth Amendment guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.
The decision squarely contradicts a 1989 Supreme Court decision allowing the execution of juvenile offenders.While it is most unusual for a state court to rule that a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has become outdated, the Missouri court's decision has generated broad support -- including from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Raymond Burke is Archbishop of St. Louis.
Archbishop RAYMOND BURKE (Archdiocese of St. Louis): When a young person commits a crime, granted, the crime itself is horrible; the degree of culpability is normally less.O'BRIEN: The decision of the rural Missouri jury to execute Simmons is also being second-guessed and criticized by 18 recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, including former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Lech Walesa; also, South Africa's Desmond Tutu -- and the Dalai Lama.
In a joint "Friend of the Court" brief, they contend, "The death penalty for child offenders is contrary to internationally accepted standards of human rights."
The American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association have also weighed in, also urging that Simmons be spared.
Dr. RATNER: And in a nutshell, it is that the brain has not really matured, you do not really have an adult brain until you are in your early 20s.
PAUL EBERT (Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney): Well, I'm going to take a shot at him, yeah! We've pretty much made that decision.
Mr. APPLEBAUM (Today): He was talking to people, trying to incorporate them into his plot. It doesn't necessarily have to be Shirley Crook that night, that's what was so scary about this case. It could have been anybody.
SHERYL HAYES (Defendant's Mother): We were caring parents for him. We did everything we could. We probably spoiled him. But there were things he was doing, I had no idea he was doing. It's broken my heart. You think about it every day. A lot of my thoughts is, if I could just turn time backwards and none of this had ever happened.
While for the justices, whether that's "cruel and unusual" may be an issue of pure constitutional law. But the question of executing juvenile offenders is inescapably as "moral" as it is "legal." When it comes to the death penalty, how old is "too young"?
