Court To Rule On Executing Child Rapists

(AP)  The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether a state can execute someone convicted of raping a child, one of the few remaining crimes that does not require the death of the victim to result in capital punishment.

Patrick Kennedy, 43, was sentenced to death for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter in Louisiana. He is the only person on death row in the United States for a rape that was not also accompanied by a killing.

The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman.

Kennedy's lawyers say the death penalty for child rape violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices will hear arguments in the case in April.

The last executions for rape or any other crime that did not also include the victims' death were in 1964.

Forty-five states already ban the death penalty for any kind of rape and among the other five states that in theory allow it for child rapists. Kennedy's case is the only time a state has sought to execute someone. Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas allow executions in such cases.

The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the sentence. "Our state legislature and this court have determined this category of aggravated rapist to be among those deserving of the death penalty, and short of first-degree murder, we can think of no other non-homicide crime more deserving," Justice Jeffrey Victory wrote.

Chief Justice Pascal Calogero dissented, saying that with the possible exception of espionage or treason, "the Eighth Amendment precludes capital punishment for any offense that does not involve the death of the victim."

The child rape case is the second capital punishment case from Louisiana this term at the Supreme Court. The justices already are considering whether a prosecutor improperly excluded blacks from a jury and then inflamed the all-white panel with references to the O.J. Simpson case.

In addition, the court is weighing whether the way Kentucky executes prisoners by lethal injection - procedures similar to those used in three dozen states - violates the Constitution.

Kennedy was convicted in 2003 of raping his stepdaughter at their home in suburban New Orleans. The girl initially told police she was sorting Girl Scout cookies in the garage when she was assaulted by two boys.

Police arrested Kennedy a couple of weeks after the March 1998 rape, but more than 20 months passed before the girl identified him as her attacker.

His defense attorney at the time argued that blood testing was inconclusive and that the victim was pressured to change her story.

Kennedy's Supreme Court lawyers also called pointed out that Kennedy is black and that nearly 90 percent of people executed for rape in the United States were black. "This court should pause before condoning a practice so heavily tinged with the scourge of racism," Stanford University law professor Jeffrey Fisher, Kennedy's lead lawyer, said.

The state said the court should turn down the case because Louisiana law is narrowly tailored to apply only to people convicted of raping children younger than 12.

The case is Kennedy v. Louisiana, 07-343.

[michellem99-2009]

Rapists need to be fixed..if that means the removal of the sexual organs so be it. My abusers are dead.

[herbpaul]

Found this in newsvine.com... more on Tasers!

While this tool is not technically considered lethal, some international authorities and non-governmental organisations question both the degree of safety presented by the weapon and the ethical implications of using a weapon that they allege to be inhumane. The history of the Taser gun is one that spans back to 1969 when an Arizona inventor Jack Cover designed the Taser based on the weapon of a science fiction character Thomas A. Swift: an electric rifle. The Tasers design was one that depicted that of a gun, upon shooting the weapon, initially it would mark a red laser on the person it is aimed at, and then would deploy two metal harpoons connected to the gun through wire filaments that penetrate the skin, and then charge is administered through.

[michellem99-2009]

I asked my room mate this as the abuse in the he went thru as did his mother. He told her to leave him.Her answer *you children need your father.* I think the problem is the woman knows she be homeless if she walked. It is time to pay ladies tha same pay as their male peers so they can live and support their family. Men want to blame the woman..He is too the problem..

[herbpaul]

Hey tukerndfw,

For your information...you''ll find more on this in Wikipedia! JACKASS!

Police Taser Use Out Of Control
Not A Lawyer | November 29th 2007 by Gerri
"I really don%u2019t know when the Taser gun started being a standard issue item for police officers. I know that the Taser was invented in 1969. According to Wikipedia, they were introduced in police work as a less lethal alternative to guns."

Now you can crawl back under that rock!
You kind of sound like child rape is not beneath you!

[herbpaul]

Hey tuckerndfw,

I said taser. It may have been a stun gun. I have lived with my daughter for the past 14-years. I''ve seen a bright, beautiful, happy, productive person become reclusive. I''ve spoken with her stepfather often over the past several months. Since the Statute of Limitations has run out for her... I have been attempting to goad him into charging me with harrasment. It may be the only way to drag him into court. He refuses to ''bite.'' He has placed numerous ''crank-calls'' to my daughter, that are designed to intimidate her. Her mother won''t address the issue. As I post this explanation to you, I wonder why I bother. What does "feminists routinely lie" mean? Comments like that are the true "cancer
on society!"
You sound like an utter jackass. Email me sometime. Perhaps we can discuss it further. You need to be educated. I won''t post me email addy here though.

In the meantime, get back under your rock!

herbpaul

[klingon69]

Prostitutes and pornographers also incite and encourage crimes against innocent women and children by men who might not have done that had they not been so aroused by filth, so I think they should also be held accountable and incarcerated for their role in the destruction of innocent lives. They are nothing but terrorists and should be treated as such, what they are pulling on the rest of us for profit was not *ever* what freedom of speech was about in our Constitution.
Posted by beachroses at 12:04 PM : Jan 05, 2008
Well beachroses;
first, what degree, crystal ball or other diving device do you possess that gives you sole knowledge of what any part of the constitution is about. It is about freedom, the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion...etc. As for prostitutes, at last check with the exception of Nevada and some American territories, prostitution is illegal. Those caught either being one or going to one are punished. As for pornographers, like prostitutes, merely follow the rule of supply and demand. If there is a demand for something, somebody will supply it. If men AND women did not want pornography and demand it and prostitution (there are male prostitutes as well) it would not exist. However, people do demand it so someobdy is supplying it.

[kevzgrl]

There is a 13 yr old girl in my church who will be testifying in Feb at the trial of her father (and I use that term VERY loosely) who started molesting her at the age of 10. Turns out he did the same to his daughter by his first marriage also. This little girl''s mom is siding with Daddy, so she has lost both her parents. Dad rejected a plea deal, hoping she wouldn''t testify against him, but she is ready and willing to go on the stand - unfortunately, he will get time in prison and be put in protective custody due to the "risk" to him from other prisoners, while this girl has been sentenced to life without parole because of what he did. There is no rehabilitation and no justice in allowing scum like this to live at taxpayer''s expense. Cut their d-i-c-ks off, stuff ''em in their mouths so they can''t scream and turn ''em loose in general population in the prisons - that''s the only suitable punishment for what they do to children.

[michellem99-2009]

I asked my room mate this his aunt heard rape/killing cases when she sat on the bence in DC. She said they did not care if they lived or died. Life meant nothing to them. She sent them to prisom when they live out the rest of their life and die. They kissed freedom away when they did their crimes. She teaches law now.

[michellem99-2009]

i HAVE LEARNT TO ASK AS I HATE LIES. I WAS 9 AND I WAS VISITING MY AUNT AND SHE TAKE A BAR OF SAOP AND WASH YER MOUTH IF YER LIED. My mum would say lock them up and thrown away the key.. Prisom is not working and they need to make so they don''t the prisomers rule it but the caretakers do guards. They go in and they come out more harded. Dress them in pink..

[grammawhamma]

Tucker: Maybe the guy used a cattle prod.

Michelle: the Kennedy they are talking about is the one in this article...not Ted...but Ted Kennedy is just as sickening.