Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape
- added June 25, 2008
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- mjsmith11
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By DAVID STOUT - NY Times
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, on Wednesday that sentencing someone to death for raping a child is unconstitutional, assuming that the victim is not killed.
“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court. He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
The court overturned a ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which had held that child rape is unique in the harm it inflicts not just upon the victim but on society and that, short of first-degree murder, no crime is more deserving of the death penalty.
Justice Kennedy, while in no way minimizing the heinous nature of child rape, wrote that executing someone for that crime, assuming that the victim was not killed, violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Moreover, Justice Kennedy wrote, sentencing someone to death for raping a child could have terrible, unintended consequences, given the years that typically go by between a crime and the execution of the defendant.
“Society’s desire to inflict death for child rape by enlisting the child victim to assist it over the course of years in asking for capital punishment forces a moral choice on the child, who is not of mature age to make that choice,” Justice Kennedy wrote.
The dissenters were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., generally regarded as the conservative wing of the tribunal."
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"As for the case at hand, Juliet L. Clark, an assistant district attorney from Gretna, La., countered that Mr. Kennedy, who weighs 300 pounds, had committed “a very savage rape” that caused serious injuries to his victim. And R. Ted Cruz, the Solicitor General for the State of Texas, who argued as a “friend of the court” on the side of Louisiana, said that Mr. Kennedy (like Mr. Davis, the other child-rape defendant on Louisiana’s death row) had “committed crimes that are just unspeakable.”"
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, on Wednesday that sentencing someone to death for raping a child is unconstitutional, assuming that the victim is not killed.
“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court. He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
The court overturned a ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which had held that child rape is unique in the harm it inflicts not just upon the victim but on society and that, short of first-degree murder, no crime is more deserving of the death penalty.
Justice Kennedy, while in no way minimizing the heinous nature of child rape, wrote that executing someone for that crime, assuming that the victim was not killed, violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Moreover, Justice Kennedy wrote, sentencing someone to death for raping a child could have terrible, unintended consequences, given the years that typically go by between a crime and the execution of the defendant.
“Society’s desire to inflict death for child rape by enlisting the child victim to assist it over the course of years in asking for capital punishment forces a moral choice on the child, who is not of mature age to make that choice,” Justice Kennedy wrote.
The dissenters were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., generally regarded as the conservative wing of the tribunal."
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"As for the case at hand, Juliet L. Clark, an assistant district attorney from Gretna, La., countered that Mr. Kennedy, who weighs 300 pounds, had committed “a very savage rape” that caused serious injuries to his victim. And R. Ted Cruz, the Solicitor General for the State of Texas, who argued as a “friend of the court” on the side of Louisiana, said that Mr. Kennedy (like Mr. Davis, the other child-rape defendant on Louisiana’s death row) had “committed crimes that are just unspeakable.”"
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I do not know how many people saw the movie "A Time to Kill". Samuel Jackson's character in the movie says it the best. "YES THEY DESERVE TO DIE! I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL!"
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Although I consider myself on the left side of the center of the political spectrum, on the issue of Child Rape, and I am not talking about teenagers here, Rapists should at a minimum be castrated; but ultimately they should be put to death.
I think that there is a difference if the child was molested by fondling, touching, or exploited nudity, but if forced penetration was involved they should be held to the maximum sentence; death. I was technically molested at the age of 12 by a man in his 30's. I was penetrated by that man, he may have given me HIV, but I wasn't raped; I wasn't forced and brutally attacked, I was a somewhat willing participant. I had already had numerous sexual encounters with cousins that consisted of touching and masturbation but I had never been penetrated by an adult.
In that situation I don't wish nor believe that man should have been put to death. But I should have had some way to hold that man accountable for what he did. However, I grew up in an extremely religious environment and talking about sex was taboo. There was literally no one I could talk to about what happened to me, what had been happening to me at the hands of older cousins, what happened to me at the hands of that man.
It wasn't until I was in my late 20's that I finally was able to talk about it and start working through all the psychological damage all that had on me. I suffered a lot of things in those 18 years or so after what happened. I kept on getting deeper and deeper into a sex life that I wasn't prepared intellectually or emotionally to deal with.
Today I am in my late forties and I have already dealt with all the psychological fall out from those days. I am happy and well adjusted sexually. -
This story is already on TV, why post it again.
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I didn't know, It was not even on the homepage when I first posted it.
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That sucks, it's probably because we were using different URLs. Either way good find.
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