Roper v. Simmons is a perfect example of the evolving role of the Supreme Court, the sources used by the Supreme Court to reach the ruling in this case are quite questionable. While I agree with the Supreme Court about protecting America's youngest citizens, the Supreme Court must have the law to support its ruling. Although they did not do so in this case, the Supreme Court used a combination of foreign policy, moral decency, and state laws as the legal basis for this decision. None of these things are adequate sources for deciding what is constitutional and what is not. The sources used to decide the constitutionality of a case are the Constitution and federal laws. While the case may be loosely linked to the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause, there is no support for the decision made. The Supreme Court with this case decided not to overturn the previous case Stanford v. Kentucky, which had ruled on this same question fifteen years earlier. However the court said that the prevailing moral code had changed and therefore they changed their opinion. The truly shocking matter is that neither the law nor the constitution has changed regarding this issue in the last fifteen years. The serious problem with this case is that the Supreme Court used the Roper V. Simmons case to create law based on invalid sources. "Roper v. Simmons is a case involving the death penalty of juvenile delinquents. The case involved Chris Simmons who was seventeen years old when he committed murder. Simmons had broken into the home of a woman named Shirley Crook. Simmons then tied up the Thief before finally throwing her off a bridge. Crook was alive when Simmons threw her off the bridge after covering her... in the middle of a sheet of paper... giving unwarranted support to their moral concern in this case violated an essential part of American law: jurisprudence.Works CitedDeath Penalty Information Center (2013, November 20). Retrieved from States With and Without the Death Penalty: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death. -penaltyDenno, D.W. (2006). The scientific shortcomings of Roper v. Simmons. Retrieved from: http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/116Myers, W. (2006). national and proportionality review. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 96 (3), 947-994. Roper v. Simmons, 543 US ____ (Supreme Court 2004). The Harvard Law Review Association. (2005). The foreign law debate in Roper v. Simmons. Harvard Law Review, 119 (1), 103-108. Article III of the United States Constitution 2.