Louisiana Supreme Court Upholds Death Penalty in Child Rape Case
Patrick Kennedy Would Be First Man Executed for Rape Since 1964
According to CNN, Kennedy's lawyers claimed that tests on blood evidence were inconclusive, and that the victim changed her story, not naming Kennedy as her attacker until almost two years after the rape.
Kennedy's lawyers have argued that the death penalty in non-homicide cases is in violation of the U.S. Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the death penalty in cases of adult rape is unconstitutional, but the Louisiana Supreme Court says that the impact of the U.S. Court's ruling on child rape cases is unclear. In Louisiana, aggravated rape of a person under 12 years old is punishable by death. If Kennedy is put to death for his crime, he will be the first person executed for rape since 1964, reported the New York Times and the only person executed for rape since the the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Before the 1972 death penalty suspension, the United States government and 16 states had approved the death penalty for rapes.
"Our state Legislature and this court have determined this category of aggravated rapist to be among those deserving of the death penalty, and, short of a first-degree murderer, we can think of no other non-homicide crime more deserving," said Justice Jeffery Victory, as reported by CNN. The law permitting the death penalty for child rape cases was passed by the Louisiana Legislature in 1995.
Louisiana joins Georgia, Florida, Montana, South Carolina and Oklahoma as the only states that allow capital punishment in cases of child rape. The Texas legislature recently passed legislation that would make child rape a crime punishable by the death penalty in that state as well. It is currently awaiting the governor's signature, according to CNN.
Kennedy's lawyers have promised to take the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Kennedy is currently the only man on death row convicted of a non-homicide.
Source: KATC- Louisiana death penalty for child rapists upheld (Associated Press)
CNN-Court upholds death sentence for child rape (Associated Press)
Adam Liptak Louisiana Court Backs Death in Child Rape New York Times
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7 Comments
Post a CommentThe way the laws are now, most get away harming a lot of children or women before their caught. Then they are hoping to get out after a few years of food, shelter and medical on tax dollars. I believe if we started executing the ones that are guilty of these brutal crimes by a few thousand a year, they would start thinking more before grabbing a child because most are cowards in the first place and don't want to die. To the bleeding hearts that will think i am terrible, so be it. There are way too many of these scum walking our streets. I think we need dug trenches and the ones that want to kill for drugs and take what is not theirs over and over , we need to line them up and bury them. After a few years of seeing that people are not going to tolerate their trash, the thugs would clean up their acts a lot and the crime rate would go down. As for parents, i find it hard to believe there is not any vigilantes after children and wifes are kidnapped, raped and thrown in a ditch. We n eed to get a lot tougher with the justice system because this liberal #$%$ is not working as you hear of more of these type crimes going higher and higher every few years. It needs to stop as the good citizens need to take a stand against these creeps. The cops do their job and the courts let them walk and it is not right.
I too am a mother, of two beautiful girls. Anyone that says this (scum of the earth) should be allowed to live
is no better than he is. Especially from a parents point of view. Maybe some of you softies should move in next to these people and invite them into your house to have dinner with your children. Wake up people! We aren't living on Little House on the Prairie anymore.
I totally agree with Heather. I am all for the death penalty in a child rape!!! Being a mother of two young children. I promise you that if something happened to my children. The person responsible would die either by me or the state. I have two sisters who were raped in their teenage years. One in the state of Michigan who was given the date rape drug on a campus by a stranger. The other in the state of Ohio by a friends older brother. They will live with nightmares, relationship and trust issues for the rest of their lives.
Jamie, your exactly right. This will open the door for more murders, and other problems.
If a man rapes an 8-year-old child, put him to death...but not before leaving him to the general prison population for the duration of his death sentence, so he can be in the place of his victim. If people can be put to death for treason, the death penalty for the rape of a child is a no-brainer.
I don't think there is anything worse you can do than rape a child. It ruins them. It kills a part of them. It changes them forever. It would have been far more merciful for him to have simply killed her. Raping a child tortures them physically during the attack and then mentally for the rest of their lives. He should die. Anyone who tortures someone like that should die.
I am all for the death penalty, but only when you actually kill someone or contribute materially to the killing. This one makes me very uncomfortable. He may be human feces, but he could have done worse. With this, the in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound mentality can take over -- why not kill the kid since you can be executed for raping her anyway?