March 02, 2005
Even if you are of a sympathetic nature .. you might still find this Supreme Court opinion [Roper v. Simmons] stomach turning for its sheer disdain of logic, public attitudes and American law.UPDATE: The American Bar Association has childhood pictures of Chris Simmons growing up -- all part of the ABA's defense of yet another cold-blooded killer. Compare those picture to this one of Simmons' mug shot:But first: The crime, as described yesterday by Justice Anthony Kennedy in Roper v. Simmons, writing for the majority: "At the age of 17, when he was still a junior in high school, Christopher Simmons ... committed murder ... There is little doubt that Simmons was the instigator of the crime. Before its commission Simmons said he wanted to murder someone. In chilling, callous terms he talked about his plan with his friends ... Simmons proposed to commit burglary and murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim, and throwing the victim off a bridge. Simmons assured his friends they could 'getaway with it' because they were minors." A few hours later he proceeded to do just that, breaking into a home, covering the victim's head in a towel, wrapping her up in duct tape and tying her hands and legs together with electrical wire. Then he drove her to a bridge and threw her off into the water, where helpless, she drowned ..
The President of the ABA praises the Supreme Court's decision to void laws made by American citizens over multiple generation in favor of moral tastes fashionable at the current moment among elites in Europe (these have been known to change):
The ABA has long believed that the death penalty is an inappropriate punishment for juveniles .. juveniles .. are less morally culpable than adults due to their reduced capacity for moral judgment, self-restraint, and ability to resist the influence of others ..More on the killing:It is also important to note, as the Court did, the evolving national and international consensus against the juvenile death penalty ..
Missouri jurors convicted Christopher Simmons of a murder they called "vile, horrible and inhuman," and how could anyone blame them? Simmons, then 17, burglarized a neighbor's home one night in September 1993. After the neighbor, 46-year-old Shirley Crook, recognized him, Simmons and his 15-year-old accomplice hogtied her with her bathrobe belt, drove to a nearby park and pushed Crook off a railroad trestle into a river, where she drowned. At Simmons' trial, her husband, Stephen, told jurors that his wife feared heights and must have been terrified as the boys dragged her to the trestle. Simmons, according to a friend's testimony, had bragged days earlier that he could kill someone and avoid execution because he was younger than 18 years old.And also this on the killing of Shirley Crook:
On September 8, 1993, Simmons arranged to meet Benjamin and Tessmer at around 2:00 a.m. the following morning for the purpose of carrying out the plan. The boys met at the home of Brian Moomey, a 29-year old convicted felon .. Tessmer met Simmons and Benjamin, but refused to go with them and returned to his own home. Simmons and Benjamin left Moomey’s and went to Shirley Crook’s house ..Posted by Greg RansomThe two found a back window cracked open at the rear of Crook’s home. They opened the window, reached through, unlocked the back door, and entered the house. Moving through the house, Simmons turned on a hallway light. The light awakened Mrs. Crook, who was home alone. She sat up in bed and asked, "Who’s there?" Simmons entered her bedroom and recognized Mrs. Crook as a woman with whom he had previously had an automobile accident. Mrs. Crook apparently recognized him as well. Simmons ordered Mrs. Crook out of her bed and on to the floor with Benjamin’s help. While Benjamin guarded Mrs. Crook in the bedroom, Simmons found a roll of duct tape, returned to the bedroom and bound her hands behind her back. They also taped her eyes and mouth shut. They walked Mrs. Crook from her home and placed her in the back of her mini-van. Simmons drove the can from Mrs. Crook’s home in Jefferson County to Castlewood State Park in St. Louis County.
At the park, Simmons drove the van to a railroad trestle that spanned the Meramec River. Simmons parked the van near the railroad trestle. He and Benjamin began to unload Mrs. Crook from the van and discovered that she had freed her hands and had removed some of the duct tape from her face. Using her purse strap, the belt from her bathrobe, a towel from the back of the van, and some electrical wire found on the trestle, Simmons and Benjamin found Mrs. Crook, restraining her hands and feet and covering her head with the towel. Simmons and Benjamin walked Mrs. Crook to the railroad trestle. There, Simmons bound her hands and feet together, hog-tie fashion, with the electrical cable and covered Mrs. Crook’s face completely with duct tape. Simmons then pushed her off the railroad trestle into the river below. At the time she fell, Mrs. Crook was alive and conscious. Simmons and Benjamin then Mrs. Crook’s purse in to the woods and drove the van back to the mobile home park across from the subdivision in which she lived. Her body was found later that afternoon by two fishermen ..
