Goody's Girl
05-29-2002, 05:31 AM
May 28
MISSOURI---juvenile execution is stayed
Christopher Simmons execution stayed by Missouri Supreme Court
The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday halted the pending execution of
Christopher Simmons, issuing a stay until the U.S. Supreme Court rules
in a Virginia case expected to decide the legality of executing the
mentally retarded.
The 1-sentence order granting the stay comes a little more than a week
before Simmons, 26, was scheduled to die by injection at the Potosi
Correctional Center. The state Supreme Court had already pushed back the
execution once, without explanation and apparently without prompting,
moving it from early May to June 5.
Death penalty opponents have lobbied especially hard against executing
Simmons, who was 17, a juvenile, when he pushed a suburban St. Louis woman
from a bridge after robbing her home in 1993.
It was not immediately clear why the state court would wait for the
decision in Atkins v. Virginia, which was argued before the federal
Supreme Court in February. That case involves convicted Virginia killer
Daryl Renard Atkins, who has an IQ of 59, and the question of whether
executing the mentally retarded violates the Constitution's ban on cruel
and unusual punishment.
Jennifer Brewer, Simmons' attorney, did not immediately return a call
seeking comment on Tuesday. A spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Jay
Nixon declined to comment on the court's decision.
Since reinstating the death penalty in 1977, Missouri has sent 4 people to
death row who were younger than 18 when they committed their crimes. Only
one, Fredrick Lashley, has been executed. He was put to death in 1993 for a
murder 11 years earlier, when he was 17.
It is believed that just 4 other countries execute those younger than 18
at the time of the crime: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
Simmons and a 15-year-old accomplice broke into the home of Shirley Crook of
Fenton in 1993. During the robbery, the teen-agers tied her up and drove her
to a train trestle over the Meramec River in Castlewood State Park. Court
records said Simmons pushed Crook into the river. Her body was discovered the
next day by fishermen.
(source: Associated Press)
MISSOURI---juvenile execution is stayed
Christopher Simmons execution stayed by Missouri Supreme Court
The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday halted the pending execution of
Christopher Simmons, issuing a stay until the U.S. Supreme Court rules
in a Virginia case expected to decide the legality of executing the
mentally retarded.
The 1-sentence order granting the stay comes a little more than a week
before Simmons, 26, was scheduled to die by injection at the Potosi
Correctional Center. The state Supreme Court had already pushed back the
execution once, without explanation and apparently without prompting,
moving it from early May to June 5.
Death penalty opponents have lobbied especially hard against executing
Simmons, who was 17, a juvenile, when he pushed a suburban St. Louis woman
from a bridge after robbing her home in 1993.
It was not immediately clear why the state court would wait for the
decision in Atkins v. Virginia, which was argued before the federal
Supreme Court in February. That case involves convicted Virginia killer
Daryl Renard Atkins, who has an IQ of 59, and the question of whether
executing the mentally retarded violates the Constitution's ban on cruel
and unusual punishment.
Jennifer Brewer, Simmons' attorney, did not immediately return a call
seeking comment on Tuesday. A spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Jay
Nixon declined to comment on the court's decision.
Since reinstating the death penalty in 1977, Missouri has sent 4 people to
death row who were younger than 18 when they committed their crimes. Only
one, Fredrick Lashley, has been executed. He was put to death in 1993 for a
murder 11 years earlier, when he was 17.
It is believed that just 4 other countries execute those younger than 18
at the time of the crime: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
Simmons and a 15-year-old accomplice broke into the home of Shirley Crook of
Fenton in 1993. During the robbery, the teen-agers tied her up and drove her
to a train trestle over the Meramec River in Castlewood State Park. Court
records said Simmons pushed Crook into the river. Her body was discovered the
next day by fishermen.
(source: Associated Press)