Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

Honestly - I think proven child rapists and pedophiles are THE ones who should be put to death. There is nothing redeemable about those people.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... components

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

I used to be opposed to the death penalty as a whole, but parenthood and the mama bear instinct has changed my mind. If ANYONE hurt my child .... I can't even go there.

[MDPhDWife]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

I used to be opposed to the death penalty as a whole, but parenthood and the mama bear instinct has changed my mind. If ANYONE hurt my child .... I can't even go there.

This is exactly what happened to me! I'm still really on the fence though. There are too many flaws in our justice system for me to support a death penalty. At the same time there are people like Scott Petersen that I hear about on the news and I want to hang them by their toenails.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

As with most matters, I prefer that as much of the DP issue as possible be left to the individual states (this case, of course, involved a federal constitutional issue--whether the DP as employed against child rapists is prohibited C&U punishment). Individual states should decide whether they want the DP and for what crimes.

I am not a big DP proponent. I am, however, a big states' rights proponent. If the individual state wants to employ it and does so in a constitutionally congruent fashion, then I am OK with it as an institution in that state. It was decided by the people as what they want from their government. However, I would encourage people who don't like the DP to change their state law and make their government work for them.

That being said, I agree with the SC's minority dissent today. Not because I cheer the application of the DP, but because the minority position better defers to the individual states in determining what is prohibited C&U punishment. I think the hotly emotional angle of the victim being a child is a red herring that just gets people fired up and makes for easy press coverage. (It's not like Obama or McCain, both of who sided with the dissent--could have agreed with the majority opinion and not had that come back to bite them in the ass for the next six months--being pegged as sympathetic to child rapists. Even the most left-leaning folks tend to make moral "exceptions" when it comes to kid-victim crimes).

The real issue isn't who the victim is: an "innocent" or a kid. The real issue is who gets to decide what crimes warrant the DP. And I would rather have the states, through their voting populations decide, than the 9 High.

[Meenah]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

Jane wrote:I used to be opposed to the death penalty as a whole, but parenthood and the mama bear instinct has changed my mind. If ANYONE hurt my child .... I can't even go there.

This is exactly what happened to me! I'm still really on the fence though. There are too many flaws in our justice system for me to support a death penalty. At the same time there are people like Scott Petersen that I hear about on the news and I want to hang them by their toenails.

This describes me too. I still struggle with this topic. I usually handle it by putting my head in the sand.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

And Abigail, I take your point on states' rights, but it just seems like a bizarre outcome to me. What you have now is a vastly different response to a murder committed in Virginia than if the same murder was committed across the Wilson Bridge in Maryland.

Would I have a different response? I may be misunderstanding your question, but here's my best shot: No, my response would be the same, regardless of where the crime was committed. If one state has the DP and the other does not, that is fine. At least the people have chosen, and if the voters want their state's law to be more congruent (or more divergent) from the laws of another state, then they can change their law. I am fine with a variance in the punishment for a conviction for a state law crime from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Ostensibly, those two states are both covered by the same Constitutional standard of cruel and unusual punishment, right?

Absolutely. Any state law punishment must not be a violation of the Constitution's prohibition against C&U punishment.

The issue on appeal to the SC was: is the DP as employed by the state upon the conviction for a non-homicide rape C&U punishment, as that term is defined under federal (not state) law? The majority said yes. My beef isn't with the determination that it is not proportional; my beef is with who made that determination of disproportionality. I personally don't think the majority showed enough deference for the individual state's determination of what set of facts (such as aggravated child rape with severe bodily injury resulting) could give rise to a sentence of death without being impermissibly disproportionate (that is, "C&U"). By allowing the DP for this kind of crime, the citizens of the state were making a moral statement: we believe that this kind of crime warrants this kind of punishment--it is proportional. The majority opinion essentially imposed the Court's interpretation of proportionality, and thus substituted their morality, for that of the voters...in a context where the state was not calling for a punishment that is unprecedent or unheard of (severe beating, deprivation, retaliatory rape, limb amputation, etc.). The state simply said that it wanted to use a form of punishment that has already been approved for homicide crimes in the context of a non-homicide. That's a proportionality call, and I happen to think that the people of the state are better suited to make that call than the cloistered Nine.

But the five in the majority generally tend to think that they know better about morality than the rest of us peons (it's been a running theme in their writings), so I am not surprised by the opinion at all. The Supreme Court was free to say, "We may not like their declasse morality, but we defer to the voters of the state and find that the punishment is not so disproportionate as to constitute C&U punishment." But they didn't: they took away that voice of the people and superimposed their own value. It's a kind of arrogance that results from (1) believing you are smarter and more sophisticated than everyone else (which is definitely natured in SC justices) and thus you need to show those ordinary, non-Ivy League intellectual empties (that is, the will of the people) no deference (despite the Constitution's clear intent to defer to them), and (2) believing that it is your responsibility to fix the mass's resulting "stupidity."

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

I heard an NPR segment about this yesterday. A group in Louisiana that supports victims rights (specific to sexual crimes, I think) was against the death penalty because they feared it would make an under-reported crime even less reported. In other words, someone might turn in a family member for a life in prison but not the death penalty. I know that doesn't have anything to do with the constitutional angle but thought it was an interesting point.

Generally speaking, I am against the death penalty. However, if a state decides that is appropriate punishment for a really really bad crime, isn't rape of a child bad enough?

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

I heard an NPR segment about this yesterday. A group in Louisiana that supports victims rights (specific to sexual crimes, I think) was against the death penalty because they feared it would make an under-reported crime even less reported. In other words, someone might turn in a family member for a life in prison but not the death penalty. I know that doesn't have anything to do with the constitutional angle but thought it was an interesting point.

I heard that too. I suppose if the victims rights groups are against it -- then I can support that. I understand their reasoning.

And Julia - I do see your point re: why should we decide?? But I just have a hard time stomaching the millions of dollars that go into housing, caring, feeding, EDUCATING these people who have committed heinous crimes. We have vets that live on the street, yet a convicted pedophile or murderer has a nice, comfy cell and a roof over their heads. It just seems like a waste to me.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

I assume that all 9 justices (and, more relevantly, all their clerks who actually write these opinions) are insufferable elitists, but I don't think that's the point of this ruling.

All law clerks are insufferable elitists, I'm afraid, whichever side of the political spectrum they lean to. An undesirable bi-product of spending all your professional time thinking about the law, but not practicing it.

[Auspicious]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

I think I'd feel the same way if something happened to my husband, or any member of my family, or even my close friends. Which is exactly why I shouldn't be allowed to decide who lives and who dies. I just don't think it's our place.

I agree with you, Julia. Mama bear feelings notwithstanding.

[Vanquisher]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

Jenn, I have a huge problem with spending the money to feed and house people who commit these absolutely insidious and heinous crimes as well. I guess I am for the death penalty in certain instances. I don't necessarily think that I should get to choose, but I think a jury of 12 plus the statements of a victims family should bear weight. As far as this being a federal or local issue. Well, I agree that it is illogical. I think the punishment should be the same for all juristictions.

Now, my idea for inmates on death row is this:

Test the crap out of them. Then use them in whatever ways their bodies can be used as a living organ donor bank. If their organs are unsuitable for transplantation, they can be doated for scientific research or medical cadavers. I personally don't care if anything that is done to these people is cruel or unusual, but I think they ought to give back to society in any way they can. I know some people might have a problem with donated organs from this specific populace, but if someone who is dying of liver failure decides he doesn't want the liver of someone on death row, then they can fill that out on their UNOS form. Either that or this scum of the earth can use their bodies to give something worthwile.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

Now, my idea for inmates on death row is this: Test the crap out of them.

I think they used to do this once which is why they now have such strict medical research rules.

But I can get the mama bear thought process.

[DCJenn]

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

Clearly, we need some Aricept in the Supreme's water supply. WTF?

Jenn

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

Jenn.

Tangent, but I know someone can answer me and I'm too lazy to look. What was the decision on the murdered girlfriend case?

Re: Supreme Court rejects Death Penalty for Child Rapists

her previous police reports are not admissible b/c she's not here to be cross examined.