Patrick Kennedy, a New Orleans resident who had been sentenced to execution for raping his 8- year-old stepdaughter, avoided the death penalty as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that child rapists cannot be executed. The lawmakers ruled 5-4 that the death penalty for child rape violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court’s ruling was at its first decision in more than 30 years on whether a crime other than murder should be punished by execution.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion of the majority which said that the Constitution forbids any state from imposing the death penalty for child rape when the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death. Kennedy added that "evolving standards of decency" in the U.S. prohibit the death penalty for any crime other than murder, thus Patrick Kennedy’s execution would have been unconstitutional.

"Difficulties in administering the penalty to ensure its arbitrary and capricious application require adherence to a rule reserving its use, at this stage of evolving standards and in cases of crimes against individuals, for crimes that take the life of the victim," Anthony Kennedy wrote in Wednesday's majority opinion.

The 43-year-old child rapist would have been the first convicted rapist to be executed although his victim wasn’t killed. Kennedy was convicted of raping his stepdaughter in her bed. He caused the little girl internal injuries and bleeding. The 8-year-old child needed extensive surgery and also suffered severe emotional trauma.

The rape happened in 1998. After he raped his stepdaughter, Kennedy called 911 and told police officers that the girl had been raped by two boys from the neighborhood who then fled on bicycles. At the trial, the child testified that Kennedy had raped her and that he had told her to lie to police just as police investigators suspected.