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One of These Statutes Is Not Like the Others

By Corey Rayburnyung

Of the six states that currently have capital child rape statutes, Louisiana's is perhaps the most unusual of the group. In evaluating an "emerging standard of decency" under the Eighth Amendment, it seems to make sense to treat the six states as part of a national trend. However, there is one very important difference between the Louisiana statute and the other five. The Louisiana statute is the only one that applies to first time sex offenders.  Each of the other states requires that a person have committed and been convicted for some prior sex offense (and some of the states have very stringent limits on what the prior conviction must have been for). For this reason, Louisiana's statute applies to a much larger population of defendants...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sex Crimes on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).