The Supreme Court announced on Friday it will put into discussion whether death penalty should be instituted in cases of child rape. This will re-open a long time discussed subject on death penalty for something other than taking someone’s life and which are the crimes that should be punishable by death.
The Court previously decided the execution to be “an excessive penalty for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life.” But in 1998, Patrick Kennedy was found guilty of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter, which is currently punishable by death in the state of Louisiana.
Although his case did not involve murder, the court of Louisiana condemned him to execution. It is for the first time in the last 43 years that a man receives such a penalty for something else than taking a man’s life. Just last month, the Louisiana court also obtained the capital punishment for another man accused of child rape.
The controversial matter comes into discussion days before the Supreme Court is set to establish whether the method currently used for lethal injection violates the Eight Amendment and its protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Louisiana was the first state to establish death penalty for child rape in 1995, followed soon after by Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, but these states only apply death penalty to inmates who have been previously accused of sexual molestation of a child.
Patrick Kennedy’s case has been on the role for some time now, but the United States Supreme Court rejected his appeal, which stated: “It flouts the overwhelming national consensus that capital punishment is an inappropriate penalty for any kind of rape.”
There has been no execution for rape in the United States since 1964, and the death penalty reinstalled by the Supreme Court in 1976 did not include other crimes than murder, but the court of Louisiana decided to take more drastic measures and stated 12 years ago that raping an under 12-year-old child, later changed to under 13, should be punishable by death.