Supreme Court to Decide if Rape of a Child Merits Death
Posted on January 4, 2008
I can tell you my answer is HELL YES it merits death! …Only after cruel and unusual punishment is administered the entire time they are on death row….
Anyway, via the NY Times:
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether the Constitution allows the death penalty for the rape of a child.
The justices acted only three days before a scheduled argument in another important death penalty case, on the standard for judging whether chemicals used to administer lethal injections make that method of execution unconstitutionally cruel.
The new case, from Louisiana, is likely to be argued in April, meaning that during the course of its current term, the Supreme Court will be examining both the most common method of execution and a categorical question about which crimes are appropriate for the death penalty.
No one has been executed in the United States for a crime other than murder since 1964. Of some 3,300 inmates of death row today, only two are facing execution for an offense that did not involve a killing. Both are on Louisiana’s death row. The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from one of them, Patrick Kennedy, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2004 for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
Read all the details. They mention how some think we should only administer death to those that have taken lives. Of course that is if you think putting someone that raped an innocent and all the psychological damage that comes with that in a resort with cable and three square meals off your tax money is better justice. I’m divided. Torture or death?
Note: A seventeen year old having consensual sex with his fifteen year old girlfriend does not constitute raping a child. The Supreme Court will need make the definition and distinctions of all this clear.
» Filed Under ACLU, Illegal Activities, News, Supreme Court
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13 Responses to “Supreme Court to Decide if Rape of a Child Merits Death”
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Well, I’m old school, and I doubt that I’m the right one to kick off this discussion considering that I believe in capital punishment, believe in the studies that show it’s a crime deterrent, and think all the cop killers should go directly to the firing squad.
There are a couple of states that still have that. And I think we’re being way too ‘compassionate’ toward people who didn’t give a damn about the lives of the people they destroyed and their families.
To my way of thinking, lethal injection is for pussies.
As far as sexual crime is concerned, I think we should still have severe punishment for people who rape, beat and sodomize women and children. It seems like today we’ve relaxed so many of the laws that make sense–that I really wonder why we don’t just open up the jails like Saddam did and let the criminals walk free.
After all, a lot of them are in our neighborhoods, anyway…you can even look up the sex offenders who live near you.
It’s too bad little Jessica Lunsford’s Dad didn’t do that…
Well i say this if the sick SOB’S can’t control there sex life and they rape kids then they should pay with there life because the child will suffer for the rest of His/Her life. If anyone ever did that to my kids they are marked for death with or without the justice. If they would start useing the death penalty like it was supposed to be for criminals would think twice.
It’s like the sex offender guy the one who is always looking for kids and had a website and all. They sit around and do nothing because they say he has not broken any laws. So then that means they are waiting for some child to get raped then they act. Ant that just nice. It makes me sick. And if that guy was around my kids school he would have one hell of a head achene along with some TESTICLE problems.
Well, as someone who generally does not support the death penalty, I have no problem and I lose no sleep over sexual predators being put to sleep.
Yes especially if like in a lot of these cases the child needs reconstructive surgery.
Thats friggin evil.
Be sensitive give the child a sense of closure.
I was a psychiatric nurse for almost 15 years. Many of the sickest patients I took care of were victims of childhood rape. Many of them live lives of endless frustration and inability to trust. They will NEVER get much better. Because if the rape happened at an early age, the trauma rendered them incapable of developing the ability to overcome the effects of trauma. I have no problem with the death penalty if the victim is under 11 years of age.
TX has a 3 stikes rule and then the predator gets life. Always bothered me there had to be 3 victims before the sucker was sent away. I agree with this and everyone else’s comments too.
The death penalty for any crime is not against the U.S Constitution unless it is more cruel and unusal than strangling a person to death. That is all cruel and unusual meant at the time the Bill of Rights became law.
That is not important because the Supreme Court stopped ruling by either the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law a long time ago and they see their own words as being law. They are in fact and practice an oligarchy who rules according to their political opinions. The court chose to use international law to decide one of their last death penalty cases and even then they cherry picked it. They will thus probably say this law is unconstitutional.
I was simply going to answer the question as “yes,” but, consider: the left is wackadoodle insane against the death penalty. Also, waterboarding. Yet, they will not even take into consideration the vast mental and physical damage done to a child that is raped, something that will last with them for years, if not decades, or even their lives. In Liberal World, the perpetrator is more important then the victim.
Yes, the Left is insane about capital punishment. I had a super-lefty “Christian” (he calls God a “she” and believes all kinds of nonsense) who actually claimed that it was more evil to give a guilty murderer the death penalty than it was for the murderer to commit his crimes (rape, torture and murder was the example given).
Crazy.
Even better, we could just sentence the rapists to a 2-year term in the prison general population. I bet none would get so compassionate a treatment as an injection.
That’s an incredibly subjective thing, though. I would be very impressed if they were able to make a clear and appropriate distinction.
Are Laws are screwed up. They give more respect to the Criminal then they do the victim. Where are the rights for these children who get raped? Then you have these liberal Judges who give these sex offenders like 20 days in jail. That is an insult to the victim and the judges should be hung by there balls for even thinking to do such a thing. Thats a good idea to do to the sex offenders. Do like they do to the bulls before riding them. Tighting that knot around there balls and leave it there for life!
But if we made are laws that had a sever penalty crime would not be like it is today. You have criminals who have rap sheets like 20 pages long and are in and out of the system like a cat to water.