{"id":535,"date":"2008-06-25T11:38:25","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T16:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=535"},"modified":"2008-06-25T11:38:25","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T16:38:25","slug":"the-death-penalty-is-not-a-proportional-punishment-for-the-rape-of-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/the-death-penalty-is-not-a-proportional-punishment-for-the-rape-of-a-child\/","title":{"rendered":"“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Rejects Child Rape Death Penalty<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\nWASHINGTON (CBS) \u2015 The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

CBS News chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen says the ruling “makes it virtually impossible now for any non-capital crime to have as its punishment the death penalty. I don’t think the Justices could have been much clearer.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Patrick Kennedy, 43, was sentenced to death for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter in Louisiana. He is one of two people in the United States, both in Louisiana, who have been condemned to death for a rape that was not also accompanied by a killing. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman. Read on<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Rejects Child Rape Death Penalty WASHINGTON (CBS) \u2015 The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child. \u00a0 In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-8D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}