S.Ct.: No to Death Penalty in Child Rape

Court watchers are properly asking whether this latest decision reflects the growing trend against the application of the death penalty.

WASHINGTON,DC (Catholic Online) - In a case styled Kennedy v. Louisiana, the United States Supreme Court has weighed in on the use of the death penalty for perpetrators of rape against a child that does not result in death.

Louisiana law allowed for the imposition of the death penalty in such non-capital offense, when the crime involved the egregious act of raping a child.

At issue in this specific case for the Court was not the death penalty itself, but whether its application for a crime which did not result in a death was proportional or whether it violated the 8th Amendments prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy summarized the High Court's limited holding in these words, "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child."

This is not the only law in the States which allows for the imposition of the death penalty for non-capital offenses. In fact, five other States, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas allow the imposition of the death penalty only if the criminal defendant has been prosecuted for a prior similar offense.

There has not been an execution in the United States for such an act in 44 years.

The facts of the case were particularly repugnant. A 43 year old man named Patrick Kennedy was convicted of a brutal rape of his own 8 year old stepdaughter.

Court watchers are properly asking whether this latest decision reflects a growing trend of limiting the use of the death penalty.

Such a trend had been signaled by the Court in prior decisions. In 1977, for example,the Court banned its use for the rape of an adult woman. However, it has also weighed in on its application in cases involving minors and the mentally disabled in a mixed manner.

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