Juvenile Death Penalty

CWL joined an amicus brief filed in the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case holding that the imposition of the death penalty on defendants who were under 18 years of age at the time their crime was committed is unconstitutional. In that case, Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), defendant Christopher Simmons was sentenced to death for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old. Simmons appealed his conviction on the ground that to execute him for a crime committed when he was under 18 years of age constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and is prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed, and set aside Simmons’s death sentence and re-sentenced him to life imprisonment without eligibility for probation, parole, or release except by act of the Governor.

CWL joined forces with a host of child advocacy organizations to file an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that juveniles bear a lesser moral culpability for crimes they commit and that there is a greater risk of wrongful execution because of their special vulnerability to confessing to crimes they did not commit. The Supreme Court’s decision is a significant step toward protecting the civil rights of children, which is a primary focus of CWL’s advocacy mission.