"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child"

[Tex]

So says Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in yet another 5-4 decision.

It's hard for me not to just be thoroughly disgusted with that statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/..._co/scotus_rdp

[Tex]

A snippet from the Alito's dissent:

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 children 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 perpetrator’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.’”

I especially like that first reason, the "national consensus." How many of you are comfortable with 9 judges (or 5, actually) making decisions about what constitutes a "national consensus" about something?

[Tex]

One more snippet. Here's National Review's Ed Whelan summarizing the details of the crime that precipitated this decision:

Warning: The facts are graphic and awful. Kennedy (not the justice) was charged with the aggravated rape of L.H., his then-8-year-old stepdaughter. When police found L.H. some two hours after the attack, she was bleeding profusely from the vaginal area. She was transported to the hospital, where she was discovered to have a laceration to the left wall of the vagina that “separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The injuries required emergency surgery.” Shortly after he committed the rape, Kennedy called a colleague to ask “how to get blood out of a white carpet because his daughter had ‘just become a lady.’”

This just makes me furious.

[MikeWaters]

In general, I am uncomfortable with the crime of rape being a captial offence.

Why? Because of the frequency of false claims and wrongful convictions.

Of course, I am more of a civil libertarian than about 99% of the people here.

[Indy Coug]

RHETORICAL QUESTION, SO DON'T GO INTO GRAPHIC DETAIL

Tex, what level of sexual contact is necessary to warrant a death sentence? Even if perchance this specific instance is sufficient, where is the line drawn on from the inappropriate touching of clothed children to the violent assault in this case?

I think limiting capital punishment to homicides may be the appropriate stance to take.

[SeattleUte]

The death penalty is just plain a travesty. I wish I could just call it ridiculous. Were the issue not so grave that would be the most accurate adjective.

[exUte]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

The death penalty is just plain a travesty. I wish I could just call it ridiculous. Were the issue not so grave that would be the most accurate adjective.

for an unborn child, who if simply left alone, would live?

[Tex]

The Court's opinion re-iterates the conditions for aggravated rape, which is what this man was charged with. I'll include the link below. You can decide if the law is just or not. A separate question is whether the Court's reasoning in this case is sound, which I agree with Alito, it's not.

As you may have gathered, it's hard for me to read the facts of this case and not agree with it.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-343.pdf

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

The Court's opinion re-iterates the conditions for aggravated rape, which is what this man was charged with. I'll include the link below. You can decide if the law is just or not. A separate question is whether the Court's reasoning in this case is sound, which I agree with Alito, it's not.

As you may have gathered, it's hard for me to read the facts of this case and not agree with it.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-343.pdf

It depends on what purpose you believe the death penalty serves. If you believe the death penalty is a punishment enacted out of vengeance by a society so repulsed by an offender that it can only be satisfied by watching the offender die, then maybe it is appropriate. That seems like a very bad basis for the death penalty, though.

If you view it as a deterrent for crime, then is there any evidence that sex offenders are deterred by the death penalty? I doubt it. In fact, given the almost universal presence of mental addiction of sex offenders to sex (particularly pedophilia), I would bet that is one of the groups of criminals least likely to be influenced by the possibility of the death penalty.

So what logical reason is there to make it available for this kind of crime? Nobody disputes the vulgar, heinous, disgusting and evil nature of sex crimes, particularly where a child is involved. I do think we may be succumbing to a dark inner desire to watch bad people suffer and die (which itself is perverse) when we ask for sex offenders to be executed (and that dark inner desire is frequently expressed in the form of "I don't even care how he is killed- make it painful). It seems to me that we can and ought to be better than that.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

It depends on what purpose you believe the death penalty serves. If you believe the death penalty is a punishment enacted out of vengeance by a society so repulsed by an offender that it can only be satisfied by watching the offender die, then maybe it is appropriate. That seems like a very bad basis for the death penalty, though.

If you view it as a deterrent for crime, then is there any evidence that sex offenders are deterred by the death penalty? I doubt it. In fact, given the almost universal presence of mental addiction of sex offenders to sex (particularly pedophilia), I would bet that is one of the groups of criminals least likely to be influenced by the possibility of the death penalty.

So what logical reason is there to make it available for this kind of crime? Nobody disputes the vulgar, heinous, disgusting and evil nature of sex crimes, particularly where a child is involved. I do think we may be succumbing to a dark inner desire to watch bad people suffer and die (which itself is perverse) when we ask for sex offenders to be executed (and that dark inner desire is frequently expressed in the form of "I don't even care how he is killed- make it painful). It seems to me that we can and ought to be better than that.

What logical reason? How about justice?

There is a difference between justice and vengeance. Vengeance is what would happen if justice isn't served.