This Pisses Me Off - Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty in Child Rape Cases

THE BACKGROUND

The death penalty is unconstitutional as a punishment for the rape of a child, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The case, Kennedy v. Louisiana, No. 07-343, was an appeal by one of the two Louisiana inmates, Patrick Kennedy. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter, whose injuries were severe enough to require emergency surgery.

As a matter of constitutional analysis, the question in the case was whether the death penalty was so disproportionate to the offense as to amount to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court’s modern precedents interpret the Eighth Amendment according to “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”

The Louisiana law extending the death penalty to the rape of children under the age of 12 dates to 1995. The states that followed were Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. Unlike Louisiana, those states all require that a defendant have a previous rape conviction or some other aggravating factor in order to be subject to the death penalty, and no one has yet been sentenced to death under any of the laws.
Justice Kennedy said there was thus a national consensus against applying capital punishment for the crime.

He continued: “We cannot sanction this result when the harm to the victim, though grave, cannot be quantified in the same way as death of the victim.”

The fact that six states in modern times have nonetheless enacted such laws, Justice Alito said, “might represent the beginning of a new evolutionary line” that “would not be out of step with changes in our society’s thinking since Coker was decided.” He said there were abundant indications that society had become more aware of and concerned about sex crimes against children.

Links to News Articles -
NY Times (excerpts above are from this site); CNN; Politicians vow to keep writing the laws that allow execution; Mass. lawmaker pledges to "rip apart" child rape victims at trial. (see more info below)

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[Justice Kennedy] continued: “We cannot sanction this result when the harm to the victim, though grave, cannot be quantified in the same way as death of the victim.”

Ahh...yes it can. It is death. A slow, agonizing death from the inside out. I prayed for death many times. Death would have been easier and quicker. The victims are zombies, alive on the outside but dead on the inside.

Justice Kennedy also said capital punishment for child rape presented specific problems, including the “special risks of unreliable testimony” by children and the fact that the crime often occurs within families. Families might be inclined to “shield the perpetrator from discovery” when the penalty is death, he said, leading to an increase in the problem of under-reporting of these crimes.

They already shield the perpetrators. How about addressing that problem instead of benefiting the perpetrators by minimizing their punishment.

This is from one lawmaker about a bill imposing tougher penalties - "I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of young victims during his testimony on the bill. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.”

(watch video here)



I've been in court. I know the ethical responsibilities. I've had to cross-examine children in court. I HAVE NOT and WILL NOT EVER treat a child witness like that. I have cross-examined children who I believe were not being truthful or were parroting what another parent wanted them to say. You still don't rip them apart and give them nightmares. Frankly, I won't represent any client who asks me too. If that makes me less of an attorney, oh well - I can live with that.