UNITED STATES SUPRME COURT

Roper v. Simmons
543 U.S. 551 (2005)

SYLLABUS

At age 17, respondent Simmons planned and committed a capital murder. After he had turned 18, he was sentenced to death. His direct appeal and subsequent petitions for state and federal postconviction relief were rejected. ….Simmons filed a new petition for state postconviction relief, arguing that …. the Constitution prohibits the execution of a juvenile who was under 18 when he committed his crime. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed and set aside Simmons’ death sentence in favor of life imprisonment without eligibility for release. It held that, although Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, rejected the proposition that the Constitution bars capital punishment for juvenile offenders younger than 18, a national consensus has developed against the execution of those offenders since Stanford.

Held: The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.

(a) The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments” must be interpreted according to its text, by considering history, tradition, and precedent, and with due regard for its purpose and function in the constitutional design. To implement this framework this Court has established the propriety and affirmed the necessity of referring to “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” to determine which punishments are so disproportionate as to be “cruel and unusual.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 100–101. In 1988, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 815, 818–838, a plurality determined that national standards of decency did not permit the execution of any offender under age 16 at the time of the crime. The next year, in Stanford, a 5-to-4 Court referred to contemporary standards of decency, but concluded the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments did not proscribe the execution of offenders over 15 but under 18 because 22 of 37 death penalty States permitted that penalty for 16-year-old offenders, and 25 permitted it for 17-year-olds, thereby indicating there was no national consensus. 492 U. S., at 370–371. A plurality also “emphatically reject[ed]” the suggestion that the Court should bring its own judgment to bear on the acceptability of the juvenile death penalty. Id., at 377–378. That same day the Court held, in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 334, that the Eighth Amendment did not mandate a categorical exemption from the death penalty for mentally retarded persons because only two States had enacted laws banning such executions. Three Terms ago in Atkins, however, the Court held that standards of decency had evolved since Penry and now demonstrated that the execution of the mentally retarded is cruel and unusual punishment. The Atkins Court noted that objective indicia of society’s standards, as expressed in pertinent legislative enactments and state practice, demonstrated that such executions had become so truly unusual that it was fair to say that a national consensus has developed against them. 536 U. S., at 314–315. The Court also returned to the rule, established in decisions predating Stanford, that the Constitution contemplates that the Court’s own judgment be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty. Id., at 312. After observing that mental retardation diminishes personal culpability even if the offender can distinguish right from wrong, id., at 318, and that mentally retarded offenders’ impairments make it less defensible to impose the death penalty as retribution for past crimes or as a real deterrent to future crimes, id., at 319–320, the Court ruled that the death penalty constitutes an excessive sanction for the entire category of mentally retarded offenders, and that the Eighth Amendment places a substantive restriction on the State’s power to take such an offender’s life, id., at 321. Just as the Atkins Court reconsidered the issue decided in Penry, the Court now reconsiders the issue decided in Stanford.

(b) Both objective indicia of consensus, as expressed in particular by the enactments of legislatures that have addressed the question, and the Court’s own determination in the exercise of its independent judgment, demonstrate that the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for juveniles.

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(2) Rejection of the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders under 18 is required by the Eighth Amendment…. Three general differences between juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders. Juveniles’ susceptibility to immature and irresponsible behavior means “their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.” Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 815, 835. Their own vulnerability and comparative lack of control over their immediate surroundings mean juveniles have a greater claim than adults to be forgiven for failing to escape negative influences in their whole environment. See Stanford, supra, at 395. The reality that juveniles still struggle to define their identity means it is less supportable to conclude that even a heinous crime committed by a juvenile is evidence of irretrievably depraved character. The Thompson plurality recognized the import of these characteristics with respect to juveniles under 16. 487 U. S., at 833–838. The same reasoning applies to all juvenile offenders under 18. Once juveniles’ diminished culpability is recognized, it is evident that neither of the two penological justifications for the death penalty—retribution and deterrence of capital crimes by prospective offenders, e.g., Atkins, 536 U. S., at 319—provides adequate justification for imposing that penalty on juveniles. Although the Court cannot deny or overlook the brutal crimes too many juvenile offenders have committed, it disagrees with petitioner’s contention that, given the Court’s own insistence on individualized consideration in capital sentencing, it is arbitrary and unnecessary to adopt a categorical rule barring imposition of the death penalty on an offender under 18. An unacceptable likelihood exists that the brutality or cold-blooded nature of any particular crime would overpower mitigating arguments based on youth as a matter of course, even where the juvenile offender’s objective immaturity, vulnerability, and lack of true depravity should require a sentence less severe than death. When a juvenile commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity. While drawing the line at 18 is subject to the objections always raised against categorical rules, that is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood and the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest. Stanford should be deemed no longer controlling on this issue.

(c) The overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty is not controlling here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the Court’s determination that the penalty is disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18….. The United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile penalty. It does not lessen fidelity to the Constitution or pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom.

112 S. W. 3d 397, affirmed.