The U.S. Supreme Court was considering whether the execution of 16- and 17-year-olds is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. The court was reviewing the case of Roper v. Simmons, in which Christopher Simmons was convicted of the 1993 kidnapping and murder of Shirley Crook in Missouri. He was 17 at the time of the crime, and he confessed to police. Simmons was sentenced to die, but Missouri's highest court outlawed the juvenile death penalty and overturned the sentence in 2003. The state appealed the decision to the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court last took up the issue in 1989, when it found in Stanford v. Kentucky that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prevents the execution of 16- and 17-year-olds. A year earlier, the court had outlawed executions for those 15 and under at the time of their crimes. On today's court, the four most liberal justices had already gone on record in 2002, calling it "shameful" to execute juvenile killers. Those four justices (John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer) joined Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority 5-4 ruling March 1, 2005. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted to uphold the executions. They were joined by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.