Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> StandDown Texas Project

Criminal Law

: StandDown Texas Project

National News Coverage of Kennedy v. Louisiana

By standdown

Linda Greenhouse writes the report, "Justices Bar Death Penalty for the Rape of a Child," in the New York Times.Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said there was ?a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons,? even ?devastating? crimes like the rape of a child, on the other. The decision was the third in the last six years to place a categorical limitation on capital punishment. In 2002, the court barred the execution of mentally retarded defendants. In 2005, it ruled that the Constitution bars the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18. Nonetheless, despite this trend toward narrowing the application of the death penalty, there was no suggestion from the majority that the court was moving toward the abolition of capital punishment, which Justice John Paul Stevens called for in an opinion two months ago that no other justice joined...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 26, 2008 (boomark / email).