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WASHINGTON (CNN) --The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that child rapists cannot be executed, concluding capital punishment is reserved for murderers.
Patrick Kennedy, 43, was on Louisiana's death row after being convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
The ruling stemmed from the case of Patrick Kennedy, who appealed the 2003 death sentence he received in Louisiana after being convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that "evolving standards of decency" in the United States forbid capital punishment for any crime other than murder.
"We conclude that, in determining whether the death penalty is excessive, there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other," wrote Anthony Kennedy, who is of no relation to the convicted rapist.
Execution of Patrick Kennedy, the justice also wrote, would be unconstitutional on the grounds of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Patrick Kennedy, 43, would have been the first convicted rapist since 1964 to be executed in a case in which the victim was not killed.
Kennedy was convicted of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter in her bed. The attack caused internal injuries and bleeding to the child, requiring extensive surgery, as well as severe emotional trauma, Louisiana prosecutors said.
Anthony Kennedy -- supported by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- wrote that the prohibition against cruel punishment derives its meaning from the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."
"The rule of evolving standards of decency ... means that resort to the [death] penalty must be reserved for the worst of crimes and limited in its instances of application," the opinion read.
After a review of the "history of the death penalty for this and other nonhomicide crimes, current state statutes and new enactments, and the number of executions since 1964, we conclude there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape," Anthony Kennedy wrote.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, saying, "The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapist is grave." He was supported by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
In his dissent, Alito wrote that the majority ruled against the death penalty "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 criminal record may be."
Lawyers for the defendant filed appeals repeatedly raising the issue of skin color, suggesting it may have been a factor in the broader political and legal debate over expanding capital crimes to include rape. Patrick 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 the issue of race did not come up in oral arguments.
The high court has in recent years banned execution for the mentally retarded, underage killers and those deemed to have had an inadequate defense at trial.
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1976 and 1977 barred capital punishment for rape -- and by implication any other crime except murder. But Louisiana later 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."
Florida, Montana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have death-penalty laws for rape, but have not applied them in decades. Texas enacted a version a year ago, but no defendant has been designated death-eligible for child rape in any state but Louisiana.
No one has been executed for rape in the United States 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 have 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 than child rape, and 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. In Wednesday's ruling, Anthony Kennedy agreed, writing, "A state that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim."
Patrick Kennedy was recently joined on Louisiana's death row by another convicted child rapist, Richard Davis. Davis' legal appeals have barely begun, but his case, along with Kennedy's, will be sent back for resentencing in light of the ruling.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/25/scotus.child.rape/
This enrages me.
Patrick Kennedy, 43, was on Louisiana's death row after being convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
The ruling stemmed from the case of Patrick Kennedy, who appealed the 2003 death sentence he received in Louisiana after being convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that "evolving standards of decency" in the United States forbid capital punishment for any crime other than murder.
"We conclude that, in determining whether the death penalty is excessive, there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other," wrote Anthony Kennedy, who is of no relation to the convicted rapist.
Execution of Patrick Kennedy, the justice also wrote, would be unconstitutional on the grounds of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Patrick Kennedy, 43, would have been the first convicted rapist since 1964 to be executed in a case in which the victim was not killed.
Kennedy was convicted of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter in her bed. The attack caused internal injuries and bleeding to the child, requiring extensive surgery, as well as severe emotional trauma, Louisiana prosecutors said.
Anthony Kennedy -- supported by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- wrote that the prohibition against cruel punishment derives its meaning from the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."
"The rule of evolving standards of decency ... means that resort to the [death] penalty must be reserved for the worst of crimes and limited in its instances of application," the opinion read.
After a review of the "history of the death penalty for this and other nonhomicide crimes, current state statutes and new enactments, and the number of executions since 1964, we conclude there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape," Anthony Kennedy wrote.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, saying, "The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapist is grave." He was supported by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
In his dissent, Alito wrote that the majority ruled against the death penalty "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 criminal record may be."
Lawyers for the defendant filed appeals repeatedly raising the issue of skin color, suggesting it may have been a factor in the broader political and legal debate over expanding capital crimes to include rape. Patrick 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 the issue of race did not come up in oral arguments.
The high court has in recent years banned execution for the mentally retarded, underage killers and those deemed to have had an inadequate defense at trial.
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1976 and 1977 barred capital punishment for rape -- and by implication any other crime except murder. But Louisiana later 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."
Florida, Montana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have death-penalty laws for rape, but have not applied them in decades. Texas enacted a version a year ago, but no defendant has been designated death-eligible for child rape in any state but Louisiana.
No one has been executed for rape in the United States 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 have 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 than child rape, and 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. In Wednesday's ruling, Anthony Kennedy agreed, writing, "A state that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim."
Patrick Kennedy was recently joined on Louisiana's death row by another convicted child rapist, Richard Davis. Davis' legal appeals have barely begun, but his case, along with Kennedy's, will be sent back for resentencing in light of the ruling.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/25/scotus.child.rape/
This enrages me.
mg: okaaay.