[Mb-civic] NYTimes Article: Dozens of Nations Weigh In on Death Penalty Case

[Ian]

A quote from the article says it best: "Executing juvenile offenders
violates minimum standards of decency now adopted by nearly every other
nation in the world, including even autocratic regimes with poor human
rights records."

Peace.

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Dozens of Nations Weigh In on Death Penalty Case
July 20, 2004
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, July 19 - A death sentence imposed for a 1993 murder in Missouri
rose to the level of an international issue on Monday as dozens of countries
urged the Supreme Court to block the execution of murderers who kill before
the age of 18.

Countries from the European Union along with Canada, Mexico and other
nations filed friend of the court briefs in a Missouri death penalty case.
So did former President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev and others, including the American Bar Association, the American
Medical Association and religious groups. The briefs condemned execution of
juveniles as inhuman.

 Their arguments, strongly opposed by the Missouri attorney general, seemed
likely to focus worldwide attention on the Supreme Court when the case,
Roper v. Simmons, No. 03-633, is argued in October.   In 1988, the Supreme
Court struck down the death penalty for offenders 15 and younger. But in
1989, the court upheld capital punishment for offenders 16 and 17. This
fall, the court will re-examine that 1989 ruling.

 "The prohibition on the juvenile death penalty is widely recognized as a
rule of customary international law," said a brief filed on behalf of Mr.
Carter, Mr. Gorbachev and a dozen other Nobel Peace Prize winners.

 In another brief, Thomas R. Pickering, a career diplomat, said: "Executing
juvenile offenders violates minimum standards of decency now adopted by
nearly every other nation in the world, including even autocratic regimes
with poor human rights records. The United States position on the juvenile
death penalty isolates us diplomatically from our close allies and has been
condemned by the international community."

 Christopher Simmons was 17 on Sept. 8, 1993, when he and a 15-year-old
accomplice broke into a house in the St. Louis area to commit a burglary.
The homeowner, Shirley Crook, recognized Mr. Simmons; by chance, she and Mr.
Simmons had been involved in a car crash.

 Prosecutors said Mr. Simmons bound, gagged and blindfolded Mrs. Crook, 46,
with the help of the 15-year-old, drove her around in her minivan, and beat
and retied her when she tried to break free. Mr. Simmons, now 27, pushed her
off a railroad trestle to drown in a river.

 Nearly 30 religious groups filed briefs arguing, in essence, that such
offenders were too immature to be fully culpable. Briefs filed by medical
groups argued that the
brains of people 16 and 17 were not fully developed in areas involving
decision-making and impulse control.  During the trial, prosecutors argued
that far from acting on impulse, Mr. Simmons had talked beforehand with
friends about committing such a crime and boasted of it afterward.

 The Missouri Supreme Court set aside the death sentence last August. The
4-to-3 majority relied on a United States Supreme Court ruling in 2002
banning the execution of mentally retarded defendants on the ground that a
"national consensus" held that such executions were wrong.  But the Missouri
attorney general, Jeremiah W. Nixon, who is suing on behalf of Donald P.
Roper, superintendent of the prison where Mr. Simmons is being held, argues
that there is no such consensus.

If anything, Mr. Nixon argues in his brief, there is a consensus to use the
death penalty "for the most heinous and dangerous crimes, even when
committed by those who have not quite reached 18." Of the 37 states with
capital punishment, 19 allow the execution of 16- and 17-year-olds. The
attorney general's brief said 13 states, including Missouri, had inmates
that age awaiting execution.  In addition, the attorney general's brief
argues, the Missouri court overstepped its bounds when it found a
"consensus" that the United States Supreme Court had not discerned.

 The United States is the only nation in which juvenile executions are
officially sanctioned. But the sentence is applied highly unevenly across
the country. Texas has
accounted for more than half of such executions since 1976, when the Supreme
Court held that the death penalty was constitutional.