Child rapists can't be executed, Supreme Court rules

CNN ^ | 2008-06-25

[MBB1984]

The death penalty for child rapists will reduce the number of child rapists because there will be no recidivism. Consequently, you will have fewer child murdered regardless of whether they “might” actually consider a possible worse sentence with murder tacked on to child rape.

And, execution of a child rapist is simply justice. No other penalty will suffice.

[xtinct]

I can think of one... * smirk *

[Loud Mime]

ping

[NinoFan]

I’m sorry if you are unable to distinguish between crimes of an extreme nature, such as child rape, and relatively minor offenses that are punished severely to keep people bowing to the state. Lines can be drawn in a number of ways and there is absolutely no reason to expect that a decision upholding the death penalty for child rape would eventually (via the slipper slope) turn us into the chicoms.

[xzins]

Kennedy: "evolving standards of decency"

The Constitution says nothing at all about capital punishment being confined to murder cases. It's simply not there. They made this up.

Kennedy & crew are a joke.

[Nick Danger]

This is getting scary. This is the second decision in as many weeks in which the court has blown off the acts of duly elected legislatures and executives, as if their own opinions of "what's right" overrule all other parts of our government.

[NinoFan]

Oh, the fact that you’re surprised that four justices were for* it tells me you aren’t very familiar with the views of Scalia, Roberts, Alito, or Thomas.

* Interesting word choice on your part. Originalists and legal conservatives do not look at an issue as being for or against (that’s for legislatures, not courts). That’s the kind of language liberal legal folk use because they can’t imagine a justice voting to uphold something they personally disagree with.

[rabscuttle385]

Agreed, just “expand the size of the court.” Makes sense to me.

Acting like FDR and the Democrat-Socialist moonbats is no way to govern a country.

[KeyesPlease]

Yes. It is no surprise that the statist majority places the intersts of the state before those of the individual. Scary to think that depending on the circumstances and who is in power, we can be branded traitors and executed; but the lives of the disgusting and brutal rapists who perforate our children will be preseverd at our expense.

[vikingd00d]

>>We can no longer execute for treason, spying or desertion?

According to Justice Kennedy, the Constitution is unconstitutional.

[Abathar]

These 5-4 rulings aren’t boding well for the handgun ban coming down I think...

[GOYAKLA]

Maybe someone besides me might remember the father in the train station in New Orleans a few years back. While the news cameras were filming detectives escorting a child rapist off a train and to jail, the father shot the perp dead. The father had taken a position at a payphone where the detectives & perp. would walk by. As they past him he turned from the phone and shot the BASTARD. The whole episode was caught and show on TV.

[Jotmo]

If the penalty for rape and rape & murder is the same it will encourage rapists to murder their victims to get rid of the evidence. But again it should be a state matter.

Or it could be that they wont even try to rape in the first place because they don't want to die.

Also, you're assuming that the manner in which the death sentence is carried out would be she same.

It shouldn't be.

[YankeeGirl]

I’m with you on that, on both points.

Later posters blasting the defense atty’s comments about what he’d have to put child victims through to defend his client particularly if mandatory sentences involved, forget the attny’s role.

What if the defendant were your husband or son, unjustly accused? Even if they were guilty, isn’t it the defense attny’s role to give his client the best defense possible?
I am in no way sticking up for child rapists, but when mandatory sentences (bad idea IMHO) and the death penalty are involved it is certainly our responsibility to ensure the trials are procedurally not flawed. Unfortunately, the defendants’ rights may trump the victims’.

I’ve just seen too many cases (pre-advanced forensics, or even intentionally done) of the wrong person serving lengthy jail time for crimes he did not commit.

[libh8er]

Secondly, the definition of a child itself becomes murky. How do you define a child -- with a specific age? What if the "child" is 6 months or a yr older than that age ? Does the crime become any less horrendous ? With capital murder there is a clear distinction -- victim alive or victim dead. Therefore, capital punishment or no capital punishment.

You are letting emotion interfere with your reasoning. Judges aren't, or at least shouldn't be, allowed that.

[okie01]

Justice Kennedy made a distintion between crimes against the State and crimes against an individual.

What was his reasoning? Why was a distinction justified in one case and not in the other?

My suspicion is that the reasoning was along the lines of "It just ought to be that way".

[libh8er]

With capital murder there is a clear distinction -- victim alive or victim dead.

I meant victim dead, as opposed to victim alive.

[MinuteGal]

Our country is now effectively being ruled by one man, swing-voter Anthony Kennedy.

Who said the United States is not a monarchy? Not any more, baby. Long live the King!

We are one nation divisible, under Kennedy, with liberty and justice disappearing for all law-abiders.

Leni

[Joya]

SO CAN CASTRATIONS.