Opinion ID: 1690384
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: retroactive application of juvenile death penalty

Text: The state contends that this Court should not reach the substantive issue whether the execution of persons for crimes committed as juveniles is prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, because Mr. Simmons is barred from raising it since he did not do so at the time of his trial. We reject this argument. In Penry , before reaching the substantive issue whether the Eighth Amendment prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded, the Supreme Court considered whether a decision barring such executions would apply retroactively under the principles set out in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). Penry answered the question in the affirmative, stating, [T]he first exception set forth in Teague should be understood to cover not only rules forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct but also rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense. Id. at 330, 109 S.Ct. 2934. The Supreme Court concluded: Thus, if we held, as a substantive matter, that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of mentally retarded persons such as Penry regardless of the procedures followed, such a rule would fall under the first exception to the general rule of nonretroactivity and would be applicable to defendants on collateral review. Id. Penry went on to hold that no national consensus against the execution of the mentally retarded existed in 1989. But, Atkins found that such a consensus had developed by 2002 and that the Eighth Amendment `places a substantive restriction on the State's power to take the life' of a mentally retarded offender. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242, quoting, Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 405, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986). In Johnson v. State, 102 S.W.3d 535, 539-40 (Mo. banc 2003), this Court determined that Atkins applied retroactively. Accord Van Tran v. State, 66 S.W.3d 790, 811 (Tenn.2001) (holding prior to Atkins that new rule barring execution of mentally retarded would be applied retroactively). In parallel fashion, if, as a substantive matter, the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of persons under age 18 at the time of their offense regardless of the procedures followed, then such a rule would also fall under the first exception to nonretroactivity under Teague because it would deprive the state of the power to impose the punishment of death on such a person. Cf. Penry, 492 U.S. at 330, 109 S.Ct. 2934. Such a rule would therefore be applicable to persons, such as Mr. Simmons, whose cases are on collateral review, and the usual waiver rules will not apply. [3] See also Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 16, 104 S.Ct. 2901, 82 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984) ([W]here a constitutional claim is so novel that its legal basis is not reasonably available to counsel, a defendant has cause for his failure to raise the claim in accordance with applicable state procedures.).