Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Capital Defense Weekly

Criminal Law

: Capital Defense Weekly

Another legislature rejects capital rape

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

The Colorado legislature, keeping with the overwhelming majority of other state legislatures, will not be bringing back the crime of capital rape, albeit merely for certain child molesters. The details are here. A curious footnote here is whether, and if so how, this will impact on the pending Supreme Court case of Kennedy v. Louisiana. The Respondent in Kennedy makes a fairly tenuous argument about evolving standards of decency arguing that the trend lines support making child rape a death eligible offense.  With the move by the Colorado legislature that trend is not going to be quite as sharp as the State of Louisiana would like. The arguments in Kennedy are summed up masterfully by Lyle Denniston: Patrick Kennedy?s lawyers, in their brief on the merits, once again relied first on the Coker v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on April 12, 2008 (boomark / email).