Some people believed Cooper deserved to die, but the punishment enraged human rights activists and death penalty opponents around the world, including those who viewed the teen as a victim of a racist criminal justice system.
Pope John Paul II urged that Cooper be granted clemency in 1987, and in 1988 a priest brought a petition to Indianapolis with more than 2 million signatures protesting Cooper’s sentence.
The Indiana Supreme Court set Cooper’s death sentence aside in 1988 and ordered her to serve 60 years in prison after state legislators passed a law raising Indiana’s minimum age limit for execution from 10 to 16. The state’s high court also cited a 1988 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court barring the execution of juveniles younger than 16 at the time of the crime.
Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has found it unconstitutional to execute anyone younger than 18.