High court shows shift on death sentences

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Last week's controversial Missouri Supreme Court ruling that sentencing juvenile offenders to death violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment marked the latest in a string of capital cases to be reversed by one-vote margins.

Since judges appointed by Democratic governors claimed a majority on the court last year, the court has ruled 4-3 to overturn convictions or sentences in five death penalty cases, with four of those rulings coming since April. In each, the Democratic appointees voted to reverse while the Republicans dissented.

However, the court's current roster has issued unanimous decisions in another 12 capital cases, upholding eight and overturning convictions or sentences in four.

While he believes the court is becoming more cautious in such cases, Bruce Houdek of Kansas City, a former president of the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said he doesn't believe the court is headed toward a blanket anti-death penalty position.

"They have a different philosophy and different approach than previous judges used to have," Houdek said. "They are more willing to take a more critical approach."

While pleased with many of the court's recent rulings, even some capital punishment opponents aren't reading too much into the court's philosophical shift.

"They've had as many go one way as the other way," said Rita Linhardt, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Catholic Conference. "But I think when they see injustice in these cases, they do intervene."

Political shift

The court's dominance by Republican appointees that began in the mid-1980s ended in March 2002 when Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat, named Judge Richard B. Teitelman to the bench.

The first four capital cases to yield 4-3 rulings since Teitelman joined the court primarily involved disagreements over whether the facts in each supported new trials or resentencing.

Tuesday's decision on capital punishment for those who committed crimes as juveniles produced the most serious split to date between the Democratic and Republican blocs on constitutional interpretation. Both sides cited U.S. Supreme Court precedent in their opinions.

Last year in Atkins v. Virginia, the federal high court barred states from executing the mentally retarded. Since such individuals lack the mental capacity to fully understand their actions, death sentences in those cases would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, that court said.

Although it had upheld such sentences in 1989, the court determined that by 2002 societal standards of decency had changed to where such a practice was no longer permissible.

The Missouri majority took that logic and applied it to juvenile offenders.

Christopher Simmons was 17 in 1993 when he bound Shirley Crook and threw her off a railroad trestle and into the Meramec River after Crook caught him breaking into her home. A Cape Girardeau County jury found him guilty of first-degree murder a year later and recommended the death penalty.

In reducing Simmons' sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the majority said attitudes about the culpability of juvenile criminals had changed.

Historically, executions in such cases have been rare and have become even less common in the last decade. Missouri has put to death just one person who committed a crime as juvenile, and that execution took place in 1993.

The majority's attempt to gauge public attitudes notwithstanding, the dissenting judges noted the federal high court had upheld juvenile death sentences in the 1989 case Stanford v. Kentucky.

Although the federal court has had opportunities to reverse Stanford since the Atkins decision, it has not chosen to do so.

"It is the prerogative of the Supreme Court of the United States, and its alone, to overrule one of its decisions," Judge William Ray Price Jr. wrote in the minority opinion.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat, plans to appeal the majority ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Death penalty states

Of the 38 states that allow the death penalty, only 16 states limit it to those over age 18. Missouri is one of 17 states that set the minimum age at 16, while another five states allow capital sentences for 17-year-olds.

Although anti-death penalty activists have raised the issue with him, state Rep. Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, said he has seen no indication that average Missourians wish to change the law. Mayer chairs the House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee, which handles bills related to capital punishment.

Various legislation to raise the eligibility age to 17 has made no progress in recent years.

While Mayer said execution of juvenile offenders should be rare, he believes most Missourians feel it is warranted in certain situations.

"There are instances where a crime is so heinous in nature and so shockingly evil where it could be justified," Mayer said.

As to the other recent split decisions, Mayer said he is uncomfortable about the apparent trend.

"It makes me wonder whether or not the court has swung to an anti-death penalty stance, but it's probably too early to tell," Mayer said.

Houdek, the defense attorney, said changes in the judicial roster always alter the tenor of the court, with new members bringing different experiences and legal interpretations.

"You can't decide these cases with a computer," Houdek said. "It happens with the U.S. Supreme Court, too. They have made decisions they wouldn't have even thought of making 10 years ago. It is a system operated by people, and they change."

mpowers@semissourian.com

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