FENTON, Mo. -- Early in the morning on Sept. 9, 1993, 17-year-old Christopher Simmons and a friend quietly reached through an open window of Shirley Ann Crook's mobile home and unlocked the back door. The teens slipped into the house flipping on a hallway light as they looked for valuables to steal.
The light woke Crook, 46, who was home alone. Startled, she called out, "Who's there?" Simmons and his friend, 15-year-old Charles Benjamin, responded by bursting into her room and ordering her out of bed. They bound her hands with duct tape and taped her eyes and mouth shut. Then they forced her into the back of her minivan and drove her to a railroad trestle that spanned the nearby Meramec River.
Simmons led Crook to the edge of the bridge, tied her hands and feet together with cable, and covered her face with duct tape. Leaving only her nose uncovered, he shoved her into the river 40 feet below to drown. The next day, two fishermen found her body with a bruise the shape of a shoe on her thigh where Simmons had kicked her over the edge.
The Ultimate Punishment
It didn't take authorities long to track down Simmons. He was arrested the next day, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. Now 27, he has spent a decade on death row.
Last summer, though, Simmons got what Crook will never get--another chance to live. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that his death sentence violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment safeguard against "cruel and unusual" punishment, because he was 17 at the time of the crime--too young, the justices contended, to be held fully responsible for his actions. The court changed his sentence to life in prison without chance of parole.
Prosecutors, however, think Simmons should die, and they have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently agreed to hear the case. Now Simmons's fate lies in the justices' hands. If they uphold the lower court's ruling, he will spend his life in prison. If they strike it down, he'll be sent back to death row.
Simmons isn't the only one whose life hangs in the balance. There are 72 other people on death row who committed their crimes as juveniles. Experts say if the Court rules that Simmons was too young to face the death penalty when he committed his crime, then the other juvenile offenders will likely have their sentences switched to life in prison too.
A ruling is expected in the fall. In the meantime, the case has reignited a heated debate over the ultimate punishment.
Too Young to Die
Death penalty opponents say teens who are penalty opponents say teens who are too young to vote or drink alcohol are too young to be executed.
"As a society, we don't let adolescents consume alcohol, and we have different restrictions on them because we know they don't have the best judgment," said Dale Baich, a federal attorney who specializes in death-row cases. "I think we have to hold that view when we make them eligible for the death penalty."
Critics also argue that public opinion is in their favor. Only three of the 21 states that allow the punishment for teen killers have executed juvenile offenders in the past ten years. In addition, a May 2002 Gallup poll found that 69 percent of Americans oppose the death penalty for juveniles.
Even some Supreme Court justices have spoken out against the death penalty. "The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote last year.
Opponents say the United States should join the rest of the world in banning death sentences for teens. The United States and Iran are the only nations that formally allow the execution of juvenile offenders.
An Eye for an Eye
If you commit a heinous crime, you deserve to die, advocates say. They contend that juries are well aware of a criminal's age when they recommend a punishment. As a result, teen killers who are sentenced to death "are the worst of the worst," Charles Hobson, an attorney with the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, told Current Events.