Opposing the death penalty

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Several interesting rulings have come out of the Supreme Court recently, with perhaps none generating more debate than whether child rapists can be put to death.

In 2003, Patrick Kennedy was sentenced to death in Louisiana for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

Last week, on a deeply split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, and many Americans are divided as well.

For me, this was a no-brainer. I think the death penalty should be used only in a few limited cases, and certainly not under circumstances such as this.

Now don’t get me wrong. What Kennedy and other child rapists did is horrendous, and I believe in throwing the book at them. But that’s exactly what will happen to Kennedy. While he is no longer looking at the death penalty, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars, without the possibility of parole, in the company of many hardened criminals who don’t take kindly to child rapists.

But death?

I would say no. The five justices voting against the death penalty said that penalty needs to be reserved for those who take a life.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that execution in Kennedy’s case would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, citing “evolving standards of decency” in the United States.

Such standards forbid capital punishment for any crime against an individual other than murder.

“We conclude that, in determining whether the death penalty is excessive, there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and non-homicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other,” wrote Kennedy.

Most states already take the position that the death penalty is not designed for child rapists. Patrick Kennedy would have been the first convicted rapist in the United States since 1964 to be executed in a case in which the victim was not killed.

Only six states, including Louisiana, Florida, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, allow the death penalty for rape, but the ultimate penalty has not been imposed other than in Louisiana in that time.

Other state and federal crimes theoretically eligible for execution include treason, aggravated kidnapping, drug trafficking, aircraft hijacking and espionage, but none of these crimes has been prosecuted as a capital offense in decades.

The ban passed on a 5-4 vote. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, supported by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. He wrote, “The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapist is grave.”

No one denies that the harm is grave, but life in prison without parole is not an easy sentence.

In commenting on the ruling, many people have said how they would react if it had been their child, and I don’t dispute that.

But the desire for vengeance is the natural prerogative of a parent, and not of what Justice Kennedy referred to as a “maturing society.”

The desire of a maturing society should be for justice for all, even the most heinous criminals among us.