Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Crime and Consequences

Criminal Law

: Crime and Consequences

Death Penalty Barred for Child Rape

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

The Supreme Court this morning decided in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the crime of the rape of a child. The primary reason for the holding is the national consensus the Court found in state laws. When death penalty laws were reenacted after the prior laws were struck down in 1972, only a handful of states included any kind of rape among the new capital offenses. The Court noted that a few states have recently enacted child rape laws, but found the trend insufficient to overcome the consensus. The decision was also based on a variety of other factors. The Court noted the difficulty of narrowing the cases eligible for the death penalty in the way that homicides have been narrowed. It noted the problem of unreliable child testimony, the impact of lengthy proceedings on the child, and the possibility that the penalty might deter victims from reporting rapes where the perpetrator is a family member...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on June 25, 2008 (boomark / email).