[mountain_man]

Court bans death penalty for child rape - Yahoo! News



I don't agree with this ruling BUT the reason I am posting this is because the statement that was made in this article by a Supreme Court justice that he noted in his dissent that "the U.S. high court already had made clear that capital punishment could not be imposed without the death of the victim, except possibly for espionage or treason."


SO the federal government is willing to concede in execution of someone that betrays our COUNTRY but NOT when someone brutally betrays the innocence of young children.WOW!!

What are your thoughts on that view and the recent ruling?

[Fr_Chuck]

I believe the death penalty is to good for someone, the torture of knowing they are going to be locked into a cell with all of their time controlled by others for the rest of their life, is a true punishment, yes they are alive but alive to what.

When I was a officer, I had a letter written to be read to the courts if I would be killed in the line of duty, to not issue the death penalty since I believed having to live in prison was a much getter punishment on their mind than the punishment for the body would ever give.

[Skell]

Raping a child is probably the most despicable thing someone can do. But killing them as punishment isn't much better in my book. Only third world countries use capital punishment. Oh sorry, and the US!

[tomder55]

There is a canard called evolving standards of decency. That is the cr*p that went into the majority's decision . Justice Kennedy wrote in his majoirity opinion that "Evolving standards of decency must embrace and express respect for the dignity of the person, and the punishment of criminals must conform to that rule," Following this so called "evolving standards of decency" and the court's precedents, he said,(now get this bs) "there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other." oh really ?

Here is a description of the injuries (not including a lifetime of emotional and psychological wounds inflicted ) that happened to the child in this case (taken from the wording of the decision itself )

When police arrived at petitioner's home between 9:20 and 9:30 a.m. they found L. H. on her bed, wearing a T-shirt and wrapped in a bloody blanket. She was bleeding profusely from the vaginal area. Petitioner told police he had carried her from the yard to the bathtub and then to the bed. Consistent with this explanation, police found a thin line of blood drops in the garage on the way to the house and then up the stairs. Once in the bedroom, petitioner had used a basin of water and a cloth to wipe blood from the victim. This later prevented medical personnel from collecting a reliable DNA sample.

L. H. was transported to the Children's Hospital. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that L. H.'s injuries were the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four years of practice. A laceration to the left wall of the vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The injuries required emergency surgery.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-cont.../06/07-343.pdf

Judge Alito in his dissent correctly pointed out that child abuse cases are moving to address this henious crime by making sentencing tougher . So it is indeed a fact that "evolving standards of decency " in child rape cases are moving towards the toughest sentencing.. Indeed ;the State of Lousiana decided that the death penalty was appropriate."The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave.''...''It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty."

Alito challenged Kennedy's claim that murder "is unique in its moral depravity and in the severity of the injury that it inflicts on the victim and the public."...."Indeed, I have little doubt that, in the eyes of ordinary Americans, the very worst child rapists -– predators who seek out and inflict serious physical and emotional injury on defenseless young children –- are the epitome of moral depravity"

My question is simple . Even if "evolving standards of decency was a legitimate constitutional argument at all ; Who appointed SCOTUS to be the arbiter of sociatal standards ? Is that not why we have elected representatives ?

Judge Alito makes a point I have made many times in the abortion argument. If they would just butt out it would be easier for society to form consensus on issues like this.

In assessing current norms, the Court relies primarily on the fact that only 6 of the 50 States now have statutes that permit the death penalty for this offense. But this statistic is a highly unreliable indicator of the views of state lawmakers and their constituents. As I will explain, dicta in this Court's decision in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977), has stunted legislative consideration of the question whether the death penalty for the targeted offense of raping a young child is consistent with prevailing standards of decency. The Coker dicta gave state legislators and others good reason to fear that any law permitting the imposition of the death penalty for this crime could meet precisely the fate that has now befallen the Louisiana statute that is currently before us, and this threat strongly discouraged state legislators—regardless of their own values and those of their constituents—from supporting the enactment of such legislation.

In other words perhaps more states legislatures would move to capital punishment in these cases if the courts were not imposing their will on the people's representatives.

This differs greatly with the power grab that Kennedy claimed for the court in his opinion .

Evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society counsel us to be most hesitant before interpreting the Eighth Amendment to allow the extension of the death penalty, a hesitation that has special force where no life was taken in the commission of the crime.

But Kennedy has the role of the court backwards. They are supposed to use caution in overturning a law ;not in upholding one . No matter what you think of the death penalty it should concern all that SCOTUS has decided to give themselve the role of arbiter of the country's standards of decency.

[tomder55]

This just in

SCOTUS upheld the citizens of Washington DC's rights to 2nd Amendment protection. They got that one right.

[tomder55]

Rare kudos to Obama...

According to the NY Slimes ,he made this statement about the SCOTUS child rape decision

“I disagree with the decision; I have said repeatedly that I think the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstance for the most egregious of crimes.” Obama told forty or so reporters. “I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision under narrow limited well defined circumstance the death penalty is at least potentially applicable,

Obama Disagrees With Supreme Court Decision - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog

[progunr]

It is hard for me to imagine anyone other than a child molester, defending the use of the death penalty for this horrendous crime.

What I found more disturbing than this decision by the Supreme Court, were the statements made by Representative and Attorney James Fagan regarding the attempt to require a mandatory 20 year prison term for a child rapist, under the age of 12.

If you haven't heard about it or seen it, take a look at this, but be prepared to feel sick to your stomach after you listen to this despicable excuse for a human being.

LiveLeak.com - Massachusetts Democrat to child rape victims: I will destroy you

[excon]

Hello tom:

I have no problem with the death penalty... Just let someone rape MY little girl... I'll drop 'em in a hearbeat.

However, I DO have a problem with the STATE killing people in MY name.

excon

[tomder55]

Ex

Well I guess the poetic justice would be that a child rapists life expectency is very short in prison. My guess is that no one particularly cares that the death they receive there truly is cruel and unusual . Oh well . I won't shed any tears.

The "state " has been executing people since the founding . As I said ;if there is indeed an "evolving standard of justice " that some day will ban the death penalty ;it is not the role of the Court to impose it . That is why we have a representative government .

[magprob]

I think it should be the parents decision. I got no qualms against shooting a baby raper.

[speechlesstx]

rare kudos to Obama .....[/url]

And rare kudos to the Associated Press, they actually noted Obama took both sides on the gun ban decision.

[tomder55]

Obama met with his closest advisors and focus groups and after painful reflection determined that... yes indeed... air is good... to... breathe.

[speechlesstx]

Obama met with his closest advisors and focus groups and after painful reflection determined that ....yes indeed .....air is good ....to ....breathe.

At... least... for... today...

The Ever-Malleable Mr. Obama

[tomder55]

Update on
"evolving standards of decency"

Turns out that Justice Kennedy ignored or was unaware that his version of "evolving standards of decency " did not match recent legislation passed by Congress 2 years ago that provided death penalty sentencing for child rape in military cases . Kennedy cited in the majority opinion that just six states have the death penalty on their books for child rape, and that it did not exist in any federal jurisdiction either.
He is wrong.
Even the NY Slimes felt compelled to point out this error on it's front page yesterday .
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/wa...=1&oref=slogin

What Kennedy means is not evolving standards of sociatal decency .What he really means is the evolving standards of decency of the black robed oligarchs in SCOTUS. Given the 5-4 nature of the ruling ;(and the recent history of the court dating back to at least the OConner days ) ,in fact it is Justice Kennedy's sensitivites and whims that are the biggest factors in judicial evolution in the country.

[speechlesstx]

He is wrong.
Even the NY Slimes felt compelled to point out this error on it's front page yesterday.

Do you know if this was mentioned in the dissent?

[NeedKarma]

Whatever happened to all those priests that raped the children in their churches? Did they get the death penalty?

[tomder55]

No but they should

[tomder55]

Do you know if this was mentioned in the dissent?

No Scalia missed it too . Also no one from the Justice Dept. filed an amicus about it. Nor did the State's legal people Still... 9 justices and all their staff missed it ?