Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 49.0

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

9 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

at 413. 

The  Court’s  recent  decision  finding  that  the  Eighth 
Amendment prohibits the execution of those who commit-
ted their crimes as juveniles is no different.  See Roper v. 
Simmons,  543  U. S.  551  (2005).    Although  the  Court  had 
rejected the claim less than two decades earlier, Stanford 
v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361 (1989), it decided to revisit the 
issue for a petitioner who had slain his victim because “he 
wanted  to  murder  someone”  and  believed  he  could  “get 
away with it” because he was a few months shy of his 18th 
birthday.  543  U. S.,  at  556.    His  randomly  chosen  victim 
was  Shirley  Crook,  whom  he  and  his  friends  kidnaped  in
the middle of the night, bound with duct tape and electri-
cal  wire,  and  threw  off  a  bridge  to  drown  in  the  river 
below.  Id.,  at  556–557.  The  State  of  Alabama’s  brief  in 
that  case  warned  the  Court  that  its  decision  would  free 
from  death  row  a  number  of  killers  who  had  been  sen-
tenced  for  crimes  committed  as  juveniles.    Brief  for  State 
of Alabama et al. as Amici Curiae in Roper v. Simmons, O. 
T. 2014, No. 03–633.  Mark Duke, for example, murdered 
his father for refusing to loan him a truck, and his father’s 
girlfriend and her two young daughters because he wanted 
no  witnesses  to  the  crime.  Id.,  at  4.    He  shot  his  father  
and  his  father’s  girlfriend  pointblank  in  the  face  as  they 
pleaded  for  their  lives.  Id.,  at  5–6.  He  then  tracked  the 
girls  down  in  their  hiding  places  and  slit  their  throats, 
leaving them alive for several minutes as they drowned in 
their own blood.  Id., at 6–7. 

Whatever one’s views on the permissibility or wisdom of 
the  death  penalty,  I  doubt  anyone  would  disagree  that 
each  of  these  crimes  was  egregious  enough  to  merit  the 
severest condemnation that society has to offer.  The only 
constitutional  problem  with  the  fact  that  these  criminals 
were spared that condemnation, while others were not, is