{"id":548,"date":"2008-07-07T10:32:48","date_gmt":"2008-07-07T15:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=548"},"modified":"2008-07-07T10:32:48","modified_gmt":"2008-07-07T15:32:48","slug":"op-ed-in-the-state-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/op-ed-in-the-state-newspaper\/","title":{"rendered":"op ed in The State Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 7.5pt;\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><strong>Death penalty ruling turns court into legislature<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">By KEVIN L. BRYANT <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 25 that the imposition of the death penalty upon individuals who rape children is \u201ccruel and unusual punishment.\u201d The 5-4 decision initially stuns regular folks who cannot understand why the death penalty would apply to someone who shoots a person versus someone who uses an innocent child for sexual prey.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">In 2006, the S.C. General Assembly stood up for children when it passed legislation providing for the death penalty in cases where someone rapes a child. I lead the fight to include the death penalty in South Carolina\u2019s version of Jessica\u2019s Law, then making its way through the General Assembly. I view no moment of my service in Columbia with more significance than the day we won that vote.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;\">Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of the latest opinion, rationalizes the rape of a child as a lesser offense by saying that, \u201c\u2018in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public,\u2019 they cannot compare to murder in their \u2018severity and irrevocability.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestate.com\/satopinion\/story\/451805.html\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;\">Read More\u2026<\/span><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"snap_com_shot_link_icon\" class=\"snap_preview_icon\" style=\"padding-right: 0px; background-position: -1128px 0px; min-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: normal; min-height: 0px; left: auto; float: none; background-image: url(http:\/\/i.ixnp.com\/images\/v3.37\/theme\/silver\/palette.gif); visibility: visible; max-width: 2000px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 14px; max-height: 2000px; line-height: normal; padding-top: 1px; background-repeat: no-repeat; font-style: normal; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; position: static; top: auto; height: 12px; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; cssfloat: none; border-width: 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.ixnp.com\/images\/v3.37\/t.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Death penalty ruling turns court into legislature By KEVIN L. BRYANT The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 25 that the imposition of the death penalty upon individuals who rape children is \u201ccruel and unusual punishment.\u201d The 5-4 decision initially stuns regular folks who cannot understand why the death penalty would apply to someone who [&hellip;]<\/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-548","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\/p2gEQ0-8Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","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=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}