Constitutional Law
Facts of the case: When he was seventeen, the defendant Christopher Simmons committed and was convicted of a premeditated capital murder. After he legally became an adult, he was sentenced to death. He appealed this sentencing. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Simmons and set aside the verdict in favor of a sentence of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole or release. In Stanford v. Kentucky, the court had rejected the idea that the Constitution prohibits capital punishment for crimes committed when the defendant was a juvenile, but the Missouri Supreme Court stated that "a national consensus has developed against the execution of those offenders since Stanford" (Roper, 2005, University of Cornell Law School). The State of Missouri appealed this overturning of the life sentence.
Issue: Can the state execute defendants for crimes they committed when they were under the age of eighteen?
Court Decision/Answer: The U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of Simmons and declared that executing juveniles under the age of eighteen was cruel and unusual punishment.
Rationale/Reasoning for the Decision: While acknowledging that an age 'cutoff' is arbitrary to some degree, Justice Kennedy when writing for the majority suggested that society's evolving standards now held it cruel and unusual punishment to execute individuals for crimes they committed while juveniles. Kennedy referred to international as well as domestic standards in defense of the court's majority opinion. He wrote: "Our determination that the death penalty is disproportionate punishment for offenders under eighteen finds confirmation in the stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty. This reality does not become controlling, for the task of interpreting the Eighth Amendment remains our responsibility. Yet at least from the time of the Court's decision in Trop, the Court has referred to the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive for its interpretation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of 'cruel and unusual punishments'" (Roper, 2005, University of Cornell Law School).
Holding: The court overturned Stanford v. Kentucky, stating that society's mores had changed, and thus executing individuals for crimes committed while juveniles was cruel and unusual punishment.
Work Cited
Roper v. Simmons. (2005). University of Cornell Law School.
Retrieved March 31, 2009 at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-633.ZO.html
However, where a state statute exerts control over matters capable of being regulated by Congress under the Commerce Clause, those statutes are invalid because they conflict with a concept that is generally referred to as the "dormant Commerce Clause" (Dershowitz, 2002; Friedman, 2005). In modern application, federal courts apply a three-pronged test to determine whether or not a given state statute is invalid by virtue of a conflict with Congressional
The prima facie evidence provision in this statute blurs the line between these two meanings of a burning cross. As interpreted by the jury instruction, the provision chills constitutionally protected political speech because of the possibility that a State will prosecute -- and potentially convict -- somebody engaging only in lawful political speech at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect. Id. At 556. In his
" (GAO, 2006) Issues involved are stated to include "the dispersal of residents in low-income communities to other neighborhoods or cities." (GAO, 2006) it is stated that an inherent right of "sovereignty, eminent domain in a government's power to take private property for a public use while fairly compensating the property owners." (GAO, 2006) There have been actions in state legislatures toward prohibition of "certain eminent domain practices, such as preventing
In addition to the argument that the law's requirement of hanging the Ten Commandments is contrary to a country with no established religion, the commandments were also serving no functional purpose but a religious one. In many schools, the teaching of religion and religious ideas occurs in social studies, history, and culture classes. This contributes to students' understanding of different viewpoints, heritages, and the foundations of countries and institutions. Thus,
In the case, Carty was a passenger of a vehicle operated by another individual. The vehicle was stopped for speeding, and the driver of the vehicle was asked to sign a form of consent to search the vehicle. During the search, the officer did a pat down of both Carty and the driver, at which time cocaine was found on Carty. The signed consent to search did not include
Constitutional Law The case of the 'Lawrence vs. Texas' of June 26, 2003, was in a nutshell about privacy rights and 'equal protection' under the law, and whether 'sodomy' can come under the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Who were the Petitioner(s) and the Respondent(s)? The case deals with two gay men, or in other words, homosexual men, that is, men who prefer partners of the same sex, who happened to be
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now