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24HourForums.com > The Top 10 Supported Forums > LC's Crimes & Trials > Death Penalty for Rape of Children in US |
| Moderated by: Lady Cop | Page:   1 2 3   |
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member  BAH HUMBUG
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if this is upheld it could save a lot of young lives. so many of the children murdered by pedophiles were victims of prior offenders who had been prematurely released. couey springs to mind. as well as the bastard who murdered Chris Barrios. there will be a lot of fail-safes and criteria to try and execute the baby-raper, fair enough. at least they'll be sitting on death row, not going free in a matter of months. the states mentioned are probably ready to act in the climate of the nation's horror at learning the extent of the problem via highly public cases. 'bout time. maybe we won't have to wait for them to kill.
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construct Pioneer100© Member  The Boy Next Door
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I think the U.S. Supreme Court might just take this case. I know that they have watched Texas and 5th Circuit death penalty cases quite closely, often reversing and remanding. Since Louisiana is in the 5th Circuit and since the 1977 case left the constitutional question open, I kind of expect this one to go on a little bit longer.
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Wolverine Original500© Member  the neighborhood furball
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we as a nation can't agree that Murderers should be put to death. what chance does this have of passing thru the Supreme Court?
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construct Pioneer100© Member The Boy Next Door
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Wolverine wrote:we as a nation can't agree that Murderers should be put to death. what chance does this have of passing thru the Supreme Court? I don't know. I con't count the votes on this one. I'm guessing that the odds are about even that the statute will be upheld.
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member BAH HUMBUG
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Court upholds death sentence for man who raped 8-year-old NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man may be executed for raping an 8-year-old girl, and lawyers say his case may become the test for whether the nation's highest court upholds the death penalty for someone who rapes a child. Both sides say the sentence for Patrick Kennedy, 42, could expand a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The high court said then that its ruling applied only to adult victims. Attorney Jelpi Picou, director of the New Orleans-based Capital Appeals Project, said he will ask the Louisiana Supreme Court for a rehearing and, if rejected, will go to the U.S. Supreme Court. "As horrid as (rape) is and as harshly as we believe it should be condemned, death is inappropriate in this case," Picou said. Louisiana law allows the death penalty for the aggravated rape of someone less than 12 years old.
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cynicalninja Forum-Blogger© Original500© Member  Smiling Shinobi
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I was always of the opinion that a lifetime in a secure mental hospital without the possibility of release is the best place for ALL paedophiles. Surely someone who gets sexually arousal from a child is incurably insane ? I am not anti-death penalty its just I believe paedophilia is a sexually aggressive and murderous mental condition. In a prison without a death row there is always the possibility of parole for them, a lifetime in a secure mental hospital after they have been chemically castrated is where they should be.
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Brian Grand Poobah of Moderation 
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I don't know what the Supreme Court will do, but (unfortunately) I think there are grounds to reverse the lower court, if the Supreme Court wants to go in that direction. It's possible that a successful argument could be made that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment for a rape conviction, since it's more severe than the offense. But with the current composition of the Supreme Court, I think this might be one of those 5-4 cases that's upheld. It's probably gonna be a squeaker... Personally, I think death is appropriate, since I've seen no evidence that these people can be rehabilitated, and whenever you put someone in prison, there's always a possibility they'll get out.
"It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last." -- "A Long December", Counting Crows |
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construct Pioneer100© Member The Boy Next Door
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Here is a link to the Louisiana Supreme Court opinion in .pdf format. I should warn you that in cases like this, the descriptions can be graphic, and you may want to skip to the legal analysis. The principle part of the opinion ends at page 62. It is followed by an appendix which deals with miscellanious points of error none of which were sustained. There is also a two-page dissent at the end. http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2007/05KA1981.opn.pdf Last edited on 06:15 am by construct |
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construct Pioneer100© Member The Boy Next Door
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I had hoped that there would be some response to the Louisiana opinion that I posted. You all have had all day to read it. I just got through reading it myself, and I was greatly edified. Apart from the survey of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, there is an excellent overview of the effect of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Crawford is a rather tricky case about the admissibility of testimonial statements in light of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. For purposes of this thread, it might be useful to look over the Eighth Amendment analysis in the linked opinion. It is found in pages 37 through 59 along with the dissenting opinion. I would pay particular attention to the sections dealing with other states' laws (pp. 47-48) and the proportionality analysis (pp. 48-56 and the dissent). The discussion of Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) is particularly interesting for anyone wanting to count votes on the Supreme Court in order to predict the outcome of this case. I still think the outcome in the U.S. Supreme Court is uncertain. This one is a close case, and it could go either way.
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member BAH HUMBUG
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Construct, i read a lot of it and thought i was back in the law library! i was mostly interested in the facts of the case. i appreciate you doing the research! i agree scotus will no doubt grant cert, and it is not a done deal.
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construct Pioneer100© Member The Boy Next Door
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Thanks, Lady Cop. What did you think about the discussion of Roper in the context of trends in state law? I was pretty impressed with its thoroughness. We have to remember that Roper was a 6-3 case and that the opinion was written by Justice Kennedy.
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member BAH HUMBUG
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i WILL get you for making me work! wasn't roper in re: executing the retarded or juveniles? and in its second part re: the appropriateness of death for non-homicide?
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construct Pioneer100© Member The Boy Next Door
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Yes, Roper is about execution of criminals who were 17 or younger at the time of the offense. The Louisiana court developed what looks for all the world to me like a "five new states" rule out of Roper. The outcome of the present case may turn on whether Justice Kennedy agrees with that interpretation of his own opinion.
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Lady Cop Pioneer100© Member BAH HUMBUG
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april 16 '08...waiting to hear the Supremes on this one.... WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court focused Wednesday on whether "evolving standards of decency" in the United States forbid a resumption of capital punishment for any felony but murder. But the justices offered no clear indication of how they will rule in the case of a man who is on Louisiana death row for raping a child.  Patrick Kennedy, 43, is on Louisiana's death row for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter.  "The trend since 1995 has been more and more states are passing statutes imposing the death penalty in situations that do not result in death" to the victims, said Chief Justice John Roberts, who appeared to support the state's position. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer expressed concern about applying the death penalty fairly. "It gives tremendous discretion to the prosecutor to pick and choose who should be executed," Breyer said, summarizing the position of death penalty opponents. He wondered whether degrees of child abuse could be capital eligible, including molestation not involving intercourse. Patrick Kennedy, 43, would be the first convicted rapist in 44 years to be executed in a case in which the victim was not killed. He was sentenced to die in 2003 for sexually assaulting his 8-year-old stepdaughter in her bed. In addition to severe emotional trauma, the attack caused internal injuries and bleeding to the child, requiring extensive surgery, Louisiana prosecutors said. Both in 1976 and a year later, the U.S. Supreme Court banned capital punishment for rape -- and, by implication, any other crime except murder. But 19 years later, Louisiana passed a law allowing execution for the sexual violation of a child under 12. State lawmakers argued that the earlier high court cases pertained only to "adult women." In oral arguments Wednesday, Kennedy's lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, faced spirited questioning from several conservative justices. Don't Miss"Our jurisprudence just requires the narrowing of the death penalty to be [for] particularly heinous crimes," Justice Antonin Scalia said. "And one could say the rape is in and of itself particularly heinous, rape of a child of 12 or under." But Fisher said Louisiana's law "is particularly at odds with national values" on whether the death penalty should be expanded. The high court has in recent years banned execution for the mentally retarded, underage killers and those receiving an inadequate defense at trial. Those exceptions drew a good deal of interest from the justices in the one-hour argument over what the trend now is. "What about treason?" asked Justice Anthony Kennedy, a possible swing vote. He noted that the European Convention on Human Rights generally opposes the death penalty, except for treason. "You can slaughter your fellow citizens, but if you offend the state, you can be put to death." And Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz told the high court that "few evolving standards are more pronounced than the growing understanding in modern society of the unique and irreparable harm caused by violent child rape." Florida, Montana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have long had death-penalty laws for rape but have not applied them in decades. Texas enacted a version in June, but no defendant has been designated death-eligible for child rape in any state but Louisiana. Texas and other states have submitted a "friend of the court" brief in the case, supporting Louisiana's position. Kennedy recently was joined on Louisiana's death row by another child rapist, Richard Davis. Davis' legal appeals have barely begun. Arguing for the state, Juliet Clark, Jefferson Parish assistant district attorney, described in some detail the injuries suffered by the victim in an attack Clark called "savage." In their appeal, Kennedy's lawyers repeatedly raised the issue of skin color and whether that has played a factor in the political and legal debate over expanding capital crimes to include rape. Kennedy and the victim are both African-American. Billy Sothern of the Capital Appeals Project cited Department of Justice statistics that all 14 rapists executed by Louisiana in the past 75 years or so were African-American. Nationwide from 1930 to 1964, nearly 90 percent of executed rapists were black, he said. But race did not come up in court Wednesday. No one in the United States has been executed for rape since 1964. Other state and federal crimes theoretically eligible for execution include treason, aggravated kidnapping, drug trafficking, aircraft hijacking and espionage. None of these crimes has been prosecuted as a capital offense in decades, if ever. Supporters of Louisiana's law say that besides murder, no crime is more deserving of the death penalty, and that the punishment would be used only in the most heinous of circumstances. Death penalty opponents contend, among other things, that it could give attackers a reason to murder their victims.
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librtyhead Original500© Member 
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Supporters of Louisiana's law say that besides murder, no crime is more deserving of the death penalty, and that the punishment would be used only in the most heinous of circumstances. I feel that this is not strong enough, and is a generalization of this pathetic crime.  It should be set in stone rather than leaving each case up to debate over what is henious and what is not. Depending on the monetary ability of a perp to defend themselves. Look at Micheal Jackson. I know he is a twit.
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24HourForums.com > The Top 10 Supported Forums > LC's Crimes & Trials > Death Penalty for Rape of Children in US | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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