MISSOURIANS TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
P.O. BOX 54
JEFFERSON CITY, MO 65102
573-635-7239
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26, 2003
Contact:
Cathleen Burnett, 816-235-1600
Rita Linhardt, 573-635-7239 (weekdays)
Jeff Stack, 573-449-4585 or 573-449-8843
Jamala Rogers, 314-307-3083
Brian Niebrugge, 314-633-2500 (days), 314-894-2334 (eves.)
Jennifer Herndon: 314-831-5531
MISSOURI SUPREME COURT GRANTS LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE
TO CHRISTOPHER SIMMONS
Juvenile is no longer under sentence of death
JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI –Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty (MADP) activists find hope) in today’s Missouri Supreme Court ruling commuting Christopher Simmons’s death sentence to life without parole. He received the death sentence for the murder of Shirley Crook, committed when he was still a juvenile. MADP members extend sincere condolences to her family. But MADP members believe that Simmons’ age at the time of the crime makes life in prison without any possibility of parole a more just sentence than death.
In 1993, Simmons, like other 17-year-olds, was too young to vote, sign contracts, make medical decisions, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, be in the military or even to serve on a jury. That year though, when he and another juvenile murdered Shirley Crook, state officials opted to suddenly consider him an adult. He was sentenced to death.
The Missouri Supreme Court has now ruled that juveniles should be exempt from the death penalty because a growing "national consensus has developed against the execution of juvenile offenders."
Denying life to someone who was a juvenile when he committed his crime is more and more abhorrent to Missourians. A Missouri poll from April, 2003, shows that 55% of those polled oppose execution of juveniles, while just 34% express support for the practice. The rest are undecided. The poll is available through the website
http://www.mindspring.com/~emcadp. See there also for more information on Simmons including a link to an Amnesty International study on juvenile death penalty and the clemency petition submitted by his attorneys last year (http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/simmonsclemency.pdf).Portions of the human brain which control impulse-control and deliberation don’t fully develop until after the teen-age years. The Missouri high court stayed Simmons’ execution last June to allow for consideration of the potential applicability of the Atkins decision finding execution of the mentally retarded unconstitutional.
According to the Amnesty study, "Since 2000, only four countries are known to have executed juvenile offenders: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Pakistan and the United State. Further narrowing this list, Pakistan recently abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders."
This ruling shows that Missouri needs to reassess its law allowing juveniles to be executed. A bill to raise the minimum age to 18 at which the death penalty could be imposed seemed to have had majority, bi-partisan support during this past legislative session. House Bill 255 was co-sponsored by 20 representatives, including 12 Republicans; Senate Bill 312 was co-sponsored by four Republican senators. A 17-year-old minimum compromise offered by Sen. Mike Gibbons (R-Kirkwood) passed in the Senate but was never voted on by the full House. Gibbons additionally pledged, during floor debate, to work next session with other legislators to help raise to 18 the age at which Missouri considers individuals for adult criminal consequences.
MADP urges Governor Holden and the Missouri General Assembly to declare a moratorium on executions in Missouri, and conduct a fair and balanced study of the death penalty, including looking carefully at sentencing juveniles to death.