Raping Children does not warrant death penlety - so says US Supreme Court

[JeffreyLloyd]

Court rejects death penalty for raping children

WASHINGTON - AP - The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child.

In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years.

- link -

 

[JeffreyLloyd]

I am looking for the text of the dissent, because I'm really curious of what they had to say. Justice Kennedy should be ashamed of himself. The death penalty is to soft a penalty for a person who rapes a child.

 

[Antigone]

This was never going to be a very popular decision, but I think they're right. As gruesome as child molestation may be and as bad as the perpetrators are, I agree with Justice Kennedy.

Then again, I pretty much think nothing warrants the death penalty.

 

[MikeK]

Good. Lifetime prison sentences will be as effective at protecting our children from known child-rapists as the death penalty would be. The CCC makes it quite clear that the death penalty is not acceptable if there is another way to stop the criminal from commiting grave acts. Catholics should applaud Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer for their votes in this case.

 

[anawim]

I don't know about other states, but in NY, you get off for good behavior. That means there out again in 5 years.

 

[MikeK]

I don't know about other states, but in NY, you get off for good behavior. That means there out again in 5 years.

The fact that some people are let out sooner than they should be does not mean that prison is insufficient to prevent a known child-rapist from raping more children. New York does in fact have prisoners who are given life without the possibility of parole, who serve exactly that. We must put pressure on our elected officials to make certain that we punish criminals appropriately and make sentences stick for truly dangerous offenders - not throw our hands in the air, declare that doing the right thing is too hard and start killing criminals. Prison can work, and the death penalty is only acceptable if ever other avenue has proven not to work. That some criminals have been released from prison early to commit their crimes again is not an indictment of prison as a form of deterrence but of lax policies that can and should be changed.

 

[anawim]

The fact that some people are let out sooner than they should be does not mean that prison is insufficient to prevent a known child-rapist from raping more children. New York does in fact have prisoners who are given life without the possibility of parole, who serve exactly that. We must put pressure on our elected officials to make certain that we punish criminals appropriately and make sentences stick for truly dangerous offenders - not throw our hands in the air, declare that doing the right thing is too hard and start killing criminals. Prison can work, and the death penalty is only acceptable if ever other avenue has proven not to work. That some criminals have been released from prison early to commit their crimes again is not an indictment of prison as a form of deterrence but of lax policies that can and should be changed.

I can't begin to tell you the number of prisoners who were sentenced to life and then released after 5-7 years. The prisons are overcrowded, and so they become a revolving door. 'Let them out in order to let more in' is the name of the game. It's the reality of the situation. Dealing with the ideal is nice, but it doesn't change the facts.

 

[BAFRIEND]

I think one consideration here; if you face the death penalty- what do you have to lose by killing the witness/victim ?

One other thing, this case stems from a family member raping a girl. This girl did everything she could to protect her father from criminal prosecution by fabricating stories, etc.

So your father gets the chair for raping you, that helps the child, how ?

 

[MikeK]

I think one consideration here; if you face the death penalty- what do you have to lose by killing the witness/victim ?

One other thing, this case stems from a family member raping a girl. This girl did everything she could to protect her father from criminal prosecution by fabricating stories, etc.

So your father gets the chair for raping you, that helps the child, how ?

Good points both. I *think* in this case the guy was an uncle though, wasn't he?

Reguardless, the specifics of this case aren't really what the Justices were ruling on - they were ruling on wheather the death penalty is an acceptable sentence for a person convicted of raping a child. The fact that we mismanage our prisons doesn't mean we shoud kill people, it means we should do a better job of managing our prisons.

 

[JeffreyLloyd]

I think one consideration here; if you face the death penalty- what do you have to lose by killing the witness/victim ?

One other thing, this case stems from a family member raping a girl. This girl did everything she could to protect her father from criminal prosecution by fabricating stories, etc.

So your father gets the chair for raping you, that helps the child, how ?

Look at it outside of this one vacuum.

 

[MikeK]

If someone raped my child, I would certainly be enraged and clawing to administer justice the quick and dirty way, but I hope that after I'd calmed down I would want the best possible outcome - the healing of my child and a conversion of heart and true contrition from the rapist. I'm willing to give the guy as many breaths as God is willing to give him to repent and save himself.

 

[BAFRIEND]

Look at it outside of this one vacuum.

I don't understand, are you calling me a vacuum ?

 

[BAFRIEND]

If someone raped my child, I would certainly be enraged and clawing to administer justice the quick and dirty way, but I hope that after I'd calmed down I would want the best possible outcome - the healing of my child and a conversion of heart and true contrition from the rapist. I'm willing to give the guy as many breaths as God is willing to give him to repent and save himself.

Brought to mind the Nessler case where the mother shot the son's molestor in the head in a crowded courtroom.

When she was sent to prison for all those years, she denied her son the one thing he needed the most, a parent.

 

[Tigg]

Ah...life sentence without parole? I would agree to life sentence for this a**^%@ if no specials are given. Let him serve his time in general population.

-Peace-

 

[MoNiCa4316]

I think that child rapists should get life imprisonment without any hope of parole, or of having their sentence shortened. I don't support the death penalty though cause maybe the person could have turned to God later on, repented..but they never get the chance if they die. Child abuse makes me very angry but God loves everyone and wants to forgive everyone's sins.

 

[Tigg]

Interesting. Forgiveness vs Justice.

-Peace-

 

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

I am looking for the text of the dissent, because I'm really curious of what they had to say. Justice Kennedy should be ashamed of himself. The death penalty is to soft a penalty for a person who rapes a child.

Agreed. These children were 3 or 5 years old. I believe it is far worse than murder.

 

[BAFRIEND]

This brings to mind the murder of James Trotter, 13.

In 1979 Trotter left his Orange County apartment after saying goodbye to his mother to catch the bus for school and was never seen alive again. In 1990 a hiker made a report to police that he had found bones in the woods while hiking and believed they were human because a jaw bone and teeth wore dental braces. The police were led back to the bones which were collected. Unfortunately the bones were mis-identified as being female. Not until six years later when another ME examined the bones and corrected the mistake did the serial numbers on the braces and dental records identify the remains as Trotters.

The case went cold until one day a dective who helped collect the bones was stopped at a traffic light and peered into a vehicle next to him and recognized the hiker who had led them to the bones. He thought it too much of a coincidence that this was only two blocks from where Trotter had lived.

The detective reopened the case focusing on the hiker, James Lee Crummel. Boy did he get an mindful. Crummel had been courtmartialed out of the US Army at 17 for molesting a boy, had been arrested and prosecuted for tying up and molesting two boys in the woods in Wisconsin, had been sucessfully prosecuted for murdering a boy in AZ (which was later thrown out on a technicality). Had countless other molestation charges dropped, prosecuted, or pending. To top it off, when Trotter disappeared, he lived between Trotter and his bus stop. Then ten years later he discovers the boy's body in the remote woods hiking 50 miles away ? Even sicker, the day that Crummel led the police to his bones was on his own birthday. One detective in retrospect mused the serial killer was giving himself a birthday present.

I don't know the timelines of all the events, but sickly enouph, Crummel had been residing with a roommate- a psychiatrist who treated sexual offenders who took Crummel with him and they both molested boys and this doctor was over 80 years old. Then Crummel was caught in the act at a Halloween party assualting the hosts son and was nearly beaten to death.

Crummel now sits on death row for the murder. But I suppose if he had received the death penalty for the rapes years back, there would be two boys who would not have been murdered. At least two boys as there are many other cases he is suspected in.

 

[JeffreyLloyd]

The decision is posted here. It's not a hard read actually, so check it out.

The opening paragraph of the dissent is brilliantly written by Justice Allito:

JUSTICE ALITO, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE
SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.

The Court today holds that the Eighth Amendment
categorically prohibits the imposition of the death penalty
for the crime of raping a child. This is so, according to the
Court, no matter how young the child, no matter how
many times the child is raped, no matter how many chil-
dren the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the
crime, no matter how much physical or psychological
trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpe-
trator’s prior criminal record may be. The Court provides
two reasons for this sweeping conclusion: First, the Court
claims to have identified “a national consensus” that the
death penalty is never acceptable for the rape of a child;
second, the Court concludes, based on its “independent
judgment,” that imposing the death penalty for child rape
is inconsistent with “ ‘the evolving standards of decency
that mark the progress of a maturing society.’ ” Ante, at 8,
15, 16 (citation omitted). Because neither of these justifi-
cations is sound, I respectfully dissent.

 

[JeffreyLloyd]

From the dissent:

‘With respect to the question of moral depravity, is it really true that every person who is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death is more morally depraved than every child rapist? Consider the following two cases. In the first, a defendant robs a convenience store and watches as his accomplice shoots the store owner. The defendant acts recklessly, but was not the triggerman and did not intend the killing. In the second case, a previously convicted child rapist kidnaps, repeatedly rapes, and tortures multiple child victims. Is it clear that the first defendant is more morally depraved than the second?

The Court’s decision here stands in stark contrast to Atkins and Roper, in which the Court concluded that characteristics of the affected defendants—mental retardation in Atkins and youth in Roper—diminished their culpability. Nor is this case comparable to Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982), in which the Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty where the defendant participated in a robbery during which a murder was committed but did not personally intend for lethal force to be used. I have no doubt that, under the prevailing standards of our society, robbery, the crime that the petitioner in Enmund intended to commit, does not evidence the same degree of moral depravity as the brutal rape of a young child. Indeed, I have little doubt that, in the eyes of ordinary Americans, the very worst child rapists—predators who seek out and inflict serious physical and emotional injury on defenseless young children—are the epitome of moral depravity.’”