The Nation - News from July 14, 1989

Paula R. Cooper, whose death sentence for a murder committed at age 15 drew a plea for clemency from the Pope and led to a rewriting of Indiana law, may not be executed, the state Supreme Court ruled. The court, on a 5-0 vote, said Cooper should serve a 60-year prison sentence for the stabbing death of an elderly Bible teacher. The court cited a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision generally barring executions of killers who were under age 16 at the time of the crime and a 1987 change in Indiana law that set an identical minimum age. The law was enacted after Cooper’s crime, but the court said it would be unfair not to apply it to her case. Cooper pleaded guilty to the 1985 slaying of Ruth E. Pelke, 78, who was stabbed 33 times.