Attorney General Requests Execution Date Be Set for Simmons

Attorney General Jay Nixon has wasted no time asking the Missouri Supreme Court to set an execution date for prison inmate Christopher Simmons. The court has delayed Simmons’ execution twice, waiting for rulings from the United States Supreme Court. The court in Washington has ruled that it is improper to execute the mentally retarded. Nixon spokesman, Scott Holste, says the arguments in Simmons’ case center on his age at the time of the crime, not whether he is mentally retarded. Simmons was 17 when he and another man broke into the home of Shirley Crook of Fenton. The teen-agers tied up Crook during the robbery, then drove her to a train trestle over the Meramec River in Castlewood State Park. Simmons pushed Crook off the bridge while she was still conscious. Fishermen discovered her body the next day.