CovenantNews.com

SCOTUS: No Death Penalty for Raping Children In Louisiana

AFP / Yahoo! News:
The US Supreme Court rendered an opinion Wednesday that a Louisiana man convicted of raping a child cannot be sentenced to death, saying capital punishment must be reserved for murder cases. By a one-vote majority of 5-4 the justices said the US constitution which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment" bars the imposition of the death penalty "for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death." The case before the Supreme Court involved an appeal by lawyers for Patrick Kennedy, 43, who was sentenced to death in Louisiana in 2003 for raping his girlfriend's daughter five years earlier, when she was eight years old. In a dissenting opinion, justice Samuel Alito and backed by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, denounced the decision as too "sweeping." The Supreme Court was banning the death penalty "no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime," Alito wrote.

Posted by Editor at June 26, 2008 01:30 AM