Court rejects death penalty for raping children
By Rizzuto

Wed Jun 25, 2008 - This from the Associated Press:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child. In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years.

Patrick Kennedy, 43, was sentenced to death for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter in Louisiana. He is one of two people in the United States, both in Louisiana, who have been condemned to death for a rape that was not also accompanied by a killing.
I think this is an aweful decision. I'm personally anti-death penalty. But to set the precident that the Supreme Court can decide that "un-proportional" punishment falls under "cruel and unusual" is just aweful law and a clear case of the Supreme Court overstepping it's bounds.

There's nothing in the Constitution about about proportional justice, and this precident can now easily extend itself outside the bounds of death penalty cases into jail sentences. Someone can appeal a life sentence as "unproportional" to their crime seeing as "unproportional" is now unconstitutional. Problem is that there's no clear definition of what is a "proportional" punishment.

Also, since when is punishment by definition a "proportional" act. Are we now going by "eye for an eye"?




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