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Death Penalty for Rape Doesn't Protect Children

By standdown

That's the title of an editorial in today's Denver Post concerning a death penalty bill Colorado legislators are considering.  LINKA bill pending in the Colorado Senate that would authorize a death sentence on a second conviction of raping a child could backfire by giving some of society's most vicious criminals a perverse incentive to kill their victims. Senate Bill 195 by Sen. Steve Ward, R-Littleton, would authorize the death penalty for people who sexually assault a child 12 years or younger if DNA evidence links them to the crime. Ward's bill also could discourage victims from reporting abuse by relatives, fearing they'd get the death penalty. The Senate Judiciary Committee amended the bill to allow the death penalty only for rapists previously convicted of a similar attack on a child...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).