SCOTUS Bars Death Penalty for Child Rapists
I'm sure everyone would agree that child rape is one of the worst crimes ever to be committed. In many ways, the act of raping a child is a unique crime due to the extreme level of damage it may/does cause to the victim. In an interesting decision by the Supreme Court, the justices voted 5-4 to ban the death penalty for child rapists. The Court went a little further than the case at hand by ruling out "the death penalty for any individual crime - as opposed to 'offenses against the state,' like treason or espionage - 'where the victim's life was not taken.'"
The Court does not intend to suggest that child rape is not an intense and horrific crime. Justice Kennedy "writing for the majority wrote that there was 'a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons,' even 'devestating' crimes like the rape of a child, on the other." Regardless of folks like Justice Scalia who disagree, the Supreme Court tends to take two things into account when deciding a case like this: their own precedence (if there are applicable cases in which to do so), and the history of the law or events in the specific state or nation-wide. In this particular case, no one had been executed for child rape in the state of Louisiana for 44 years and the stats were quite similar among states with capital punishment.
Here are the facts per the New York Times and, may I add the very awesome and intelligent, Linda Greenhouse:
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. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld Mr. Kennedy’s conviction and rejected his challenge to the constitutionality of his sentence.The court on Wednesday treated the issue of capital punishment for child rape as a fresh question, not governed by any existing precedent. 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.'
Justice Kennedy, in the opinion, said that "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 underreporting these crimes." From this statement, I believe that what Justice Kennedy is suggesting is that by banning the death penalty for child rape, more crimes will be reported, especially within families. I'm not sure if this logic holds water, but I would love to believe it. Justice Alito in his dissent argued that such statements were merely 'policy arguments' that were an extension away from the question at hand. He argued that "the Eighth Amendment 'does not authorize this court to strike down federal or state criminal laws on the ground that they are not in the best interests of crime victims or the broader society.'"
John McCain, continuing his attack on the Supreme Court, said. "That there is a judge anywhere in America who does not believe that the rape of a child represents the most heinous of crimes, which is deserving of the most serious of punishments, is profoundly disturbing." I would agree that it is a horrendous crime, however, as an individual against the use of capital punishment, I would agree with the basis of the decision. I am incredibly torn, however. Like Justice Stevens, I would love to see the death penalty abolished, but I would also love to see child rapists get the punishment they deserve. This is a really hard case for me to put myself on one side or the other.
Interestingly enough, it appears that Barack Obama agrees: "I agree that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, that the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution." He said that the "Supreme Court should have set conditions for imposing the death penalty for the crime, 'but it basically had a blanket prohibition, and I disagree with the decision.'"
I wonder, does anyone agree with this decision?
Additional case info after the jump...
< a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_07_343/">Facts of the Case:
A Louisiana court found Patrick Kennedy guilty of raping his eight-year-old stepdaughter. Louisiana law allows the district attorney to seek the death penalty for defendants found guilty of raping children under the age of twelve. The prosecutor sought, and the jury awarded, such a sentence; Kennedy appealed.The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the imposition of the death sentence, noting that although the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down capital punishment for rape of an adult woman in Coker v. Georgia, that ruling did not apply when the victim was a child. Rather the Louisiana high court applied a balancing test set out by the Court in Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons, first examining whether there is a national consensus on the punishment and then considering whether the court would find the punishment excessive. In this case, the Louisiana Supreme Court felt that the adoption of similar laws in five other states, coupled with the unique vulnerability of children, justified imposing the death penalty.
In seeking certiorari, Kennedy argued that five states do not constitute a "national consensus" for the purposes of Eighth Amendment analysis, that Coker v. Georgia should apply to all rapes regardless of the age of the victim, and that the law was unfair in its application, singling out black child rapists for death at a significantly higher rate than whites.
Question of the Case:
"Do states violate the Eight Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment by imposing the death sentence for the crime of child rape?"