Supreme Court Ruling on Kennedy v. Louisana
Updated
Mom send this from American Spectator which advocates / explains why the death penalty is only viable for capitol murder. Mine is an emotional argument ... the folks at Spectator say "If the penalty for child rape is death and the penalty for child rape and murdering the victim is also death, then there's really no penalty for killing the victim and eliminating the principal witness to the crime. All criminals know this."
I'd argue that all criminals don't know that. I'd say that the mind of the criminal is more apt to think "I'm going to get away with it" versus any real consequences. Because - well their criminals. You'd have to think you'd get away with it in order to begin in the first place.
Powerline - also brought up by Mom - and others that I've been listening to on talk radio, are upset because the Supreme Court basically ignored the will of the people of LA, and dictated what they felt should be law, versus what the people feel should be law.
I - emotionally - think there is no punishment vile enough for crimes of this nature. Death is too good. Imprisonment is too good.
And you gotta wonder about the mom.
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I'm not a lawyer. So I'm not required by any board or standard to have a lawful argument. The ruling from the Supreme Court today makes my heart sick. In Kennedy v. Louisana, they ruled that the state can not sentence a person to death for rape.
And this in their ruling: "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child."
I'm sorry - what is a "proportional punishment" for the rape of a child? If we're not going to be cruel and unusual, anything less / else is completely disproportionate, because the crime itself is excessively cruel.
And from the decision, the description of what he did to his step-daughter is just ... revolting. And the jury must have felt similarly, because they gave the man the death penalty.
"...the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim's life was not taken."
If we are not going to use capitol punishment in these instances, because we fancy ourselves just and merciful and fair, then we should not use capitol punishment in any instance.
Which I guess is where this is all going anyway.
I can tell you though - if my 8 year old daughter told me that my husband, her step-father had done this to her - there would be a trial for murder, and not for rape. And I would get the dealth penalty, or maybe I wouldn't. I could appeal and appeal and appeal to the Supreme Court and in a 5-4 ruling they would say that the death penalty isn't proportionate in this case.
That's if there was a jury alive who would convict me in the first place.
Mom send this from American Spectator which advocates / explains why the death penalty is only viable for capitol murder. Mine is an emotional argument ... the folks at Spectator say "If the penalty for child rape is death and the penalty for child rape and murdering the victim is also death, then there's really no penalty for killing the victim and eliminating the principal witness to the crime. All criminals know this."
I'd argue that all criminals don't know that. I'd say that the mind of the criminal is more apt to think "I'm going to get away with it" versus any real consequences. Because - well their criminals. You'd have to think you'd get away with it in order to begin in the first place.
Powerline - also brought up by Mom - and others that I've been listening to on talk radio, are upset because the Supreme Court basically ignored the will of the people of LA, and dictated what they felt should be law, versus what the people feel should be law.
I - emotionally - think there is no punishment vile enough for crimes of this nature. Death is too good. Imprisonment is too good.
And you gotta wonder about the mom.
-------------------------------------------------
I'm not a lawyer. So I'm not required by any board or standard to have a lawful argument. The ruling from the Supreme Court today makes my heart sick. In Kennedy v. Louisana, they ruled that the state can not sentence a person to death for rape.
And this in their ruling: "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child."
I'm sorry - what is a "proportional punishment" for the rape of a child? If we're not going to be cruel and unusual, anything less / else is completely disproportionate, because the crime itself is excessively cruel.
And from the decision, the description of what he did to his step-daughter is just ... revolting. And the jury must have felt similarly, because they gave the man the death penalty.
"...the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim's life was not taken."
If we are not going to use capitol punishment in these instances, because we fancy ourselves just and merciful and fair, then we should not use capitol punishment in any instance.
Which I guess is where this is all going anyway.
I can tell you though - if my 8 year old daughter told me that my husband, her step-father had done this to her - there would be a trial for murder, and not for rape. And I would get the dealth penalty, or maybe I wouldn't. I could appeal and appeal and appeal to the Supreme Court and in a 5-4 ruling they would say that the death penalty isn't proportionate in this case.
That's if there was a jury alive who would convict me in the first place.
Comments
a) from the point of the criminal if you're going to get death for raping a child why not just kill the child and get rid of the witness?
b) from the point of the child/child's family if Uncle Bob is going to be executed based on the child's accusations there is an incentive not to report the crime at all.
It's not always black and white--in fact, it rarely is. Child testimony is notoriously unreliable and prone to suggestion. Even in this case, for example, there is evidence the girl changed her testimony in response to conversations with police/social workers. It makes me uncomfortable that people are in jail over such testimony--that someone might die over it is unconscionable.
When you add in other case law that influences the process we use to put people to death--like death qualified juries, for example (if you're extremely pro-death you can be on the jury in a death case, if you're extremely against the death penalty you're disqualified)--I have trouble understanding how anyone can be confident enough of guilt to sentence someone to death.
And (sorry this is getting to be a long comment!) I have an obvious bias here, I realize, but I'm honestly not against the death penalty per se. If you could in some magical, fairy tale world prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that a person committed some very heinous murder I'd say, "OK, do what you'd like." But, as has been shown in many exoneration cases, even DNA isn't fool proof.
I think your emotional response is understandable--we all want to lash out when a child is hurt like that--but I think reason ultimately has to rule when it comes to ultimately punishing the person society believes is responsible. And rationally, anything less than a life for a life just doesn't make sense. Given how patently unfair our system for putting people to death in this country is, even that probably doesn't make sense.
I think in this case, they couldn't press charges on anyone because 1) no evidence supported the random boys being the perpetrator and 2) without corroborating testimony (that's my Law and Order word!) from the victim, there was no way to go after the step-dad.
I find it plausible that she didn't want to tell on her step-dad, because of point b. But when she was returned to her mother's custody, she told her mom the truth.
But - the defense could make the argument the other way too.
Ugly, ugly business. And when she's older, I wonder what she will think about it.
This poor child is 15 or 16 years old now. When she was finally placed on the stand she was fourteen, six years after the incident occured. This is not something that will never go away for her.
Deciding whether the death penalty is cruel and unusual in some cases more then others is really painstakingly difficult.... rape comes in all shapes and sizes... there is the rape of a woman who wanted to go home with a guy and changes her mind at the last minute, there is blatent forced rape of an adult, and then there is brutal rape... none of them are an option i would wish upon my worst enemy.
In my mind rape of a child is 100 times worse then any of these. A child has no way to fight back. A child no matter how mature cannot posibly understand and reason with somthing so terrible happening to them.
I have been asking people for part of my reasearch how they feel about it and they say without even knowing what happened... kill him. but then i ask because i want both sides what if it was your son doing the raping? the idea changes completely.
I am not defending this man i think death is not cruel enough for him. Detaching myself from this while i reasearch it is impossible. like you first said there would be no rape trial it would be a murder trial I dont care if the man was my husband for 60 years he would be dead and gone, and noone would ever find him and thats just how i feel. But then the logic in me says what if it was my brother that raped the child would i want him to die? If a man close to me came to me and told me that he had raped a young child so badly that she had to be fed gallons of stool softners to get her to be able to go again.... I would want to be on that jury pushing the death penalty.
I don't know how the girl feels about the verdicts in the mans trial... if i were her i wouldn't even wanna know what happened to him
As for the child changing her story? thousands of rapes go unreported every year because adult women are too ashamed to come forward. How could you expect anything more from an eight year old child? What victim wants to talk to a police officer, especially a child? As soon as she was able to she told somone she trusted. Her mother.
As for proving beyond a shadow of a doubt... this case did not make it to the supreme court because they weren't sure who did it or not. It went to the supreme court because they were tring to decide wheather to kill him or not...! the man called his work and asked his boss if he knew how to get blood out of a white carpet! the man called a floor cleaning service to have them immediately come out and clean his carpets. he tried to cover it up as any guilty person would
He waited two hours to call an ambulace after it happened. the poor eight year old child was bleeding from her ruputured vagina for two hours before he decided to do anything. the pediatrician that saw her first said he had never seen somthing so bad in his years of working as a pediatrician she had to have emergency surgery to repare the damage done to her! i don't see how anyone could defend this mans actions! I would have been one of the 4 thats all I can say and I can only hope for the best for this young woman and hope that she can cope with what has happened to her in her short life.