Roper V. Simmons Case Study

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In the matter of Roper v. Simmons (2005), 17 year old Christopher Simmons and two accomplices had planned a murder in great detail and carried out the killing of victim Shirley Crook. In 1993, Simmons entered Crook’s home, robbed her, tied her up, and finally threw her off a bridge. The case had an overwhelming amount of evidence including a confession from Simmons, testimony from another accomplice in the planning of the murder, and a videotaped reenactment of the murder. At the age of 17, after a brief trial, Simmons was found guilty of the crimes and subsequently sentenced to death (Roper v. Simmons, n.d.).

From prison, Simmons filed appeals to both state and federal courts, but with each, his sentence was upheld (Roper v. Simmons, n.d.). In 2002, the Missouri Supreme Court placed a stay of execution on Roper’s case while the United States Supreme Court decided a case involving a mentally disabled man facing execution. In this case, Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing a person who is mentally disabled violates both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments as it is considered cruel and unusual punishment (Roper v. Simmons, 2005). This ruling was directly in contrast with an earlier U.S. Supreme Court decision in Stanford v. Kentucky (USSC, 1989), which ruled that the execution of minors was not unconstitutional (Roper v. Simmons, n.d.). …show more content…
Virginia. The Missouri Supreme Court decided to review Simmons’ case, while applying reasoning from Atkins v. Virginia, and ruled 6 - 3 that executing minors was unconstitutional (Roper v. Simmons,

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