Post by Anja on Jun 10, 2006 4:20:08 GMT -5
Death Penalty in Some Cases of Child Sex Is Widening
Oklahoma became the 5th state to allow the death penalty for sex crimes
against children yesterday, a day after South Carolina enacted a similar
law. The constitutionality of the new laws is unclear.
The Oklahoma measure, signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat,
makes people found guilty of rape and other sex crimes more than once
against children younger than 14 eligible for the death penalty.
The South Carolina law also requires multiple offenses, but against
children under 11. Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, said in a statement
that the law would "be an incredibly powerful deterrent to offenders that
have already been released."
But Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment, said the new
laws were largely symbolic, would impose disproportionate punishment and
were probably unconstitutional.
There has not been an execution for rape in the United States since 1964,
and no one has been executed for any crime that did not involve a killing
since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Before the
Supreme Court suspended the death penalty in 1972, 16 states and the
federal government authorized it for rape.
In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could not be
imposed for the rape of an adult woman. The penalty was, the court ruled,
disproportionate to the crime and therefore forbidden as cruel and unusual
punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
"Life is over for the victim of the murderer," Justice Byron R. White
wrote for the majority. "For the rape victim, life may not be nearly so
happy as it was, but it is not over and normally is not beyond repair."
The defendant in that case, Ehrlich Coker, escaped from a state prison in
Georgia where he was serving time for a murder and 2 rapes. He soon raped
another woman in front of her husband. He was sentenced to death for that
last crime.
Dissenting from the majority decision to overturn Mr. Coker's death
sentence, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote that the ruling "prevents
the state from imposing any effective punishment upon Coker for his latest
rape."
At the time, Georgia was the lone state that permitted the death penalty
for the rape of adult women, a fact that the Supreme Court found
significant. In recent decisions barring the execution of juvenile
offenders and the mentally retarded, the court took careful stock of state
laws and trends in state legislatures to evaluate whether a societal
consensus existed to permit or bar capital punishment in given classes of
cases.
Trey Walker, chief executive assistant to Attorney General Henry McMaster
of South Carolina, said in an interview yesterday that "there will be more
and more" laws making sex crimes against children capital offenses.
"This is something the Supreme Court takes into account," Mr. Walker said.
"There is not much doubt that this law would be upheld and found
constitutional."
The other states with such laws are Florida, Louisiana and Montana. In
2003, a Louisianan, Patrick O. Kennedy, was sentenced to death under a law
enacted in 1995 that allows the death penalty for the rape of a child
under 12. His case is working its way through the courts.
In 1996, the Louisiana Supreme Court, in a 5-to-2 decision, ruled that the
law was constitutional.
The United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in that case in
1997, with 3 justices - Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John
Paul Stevens - issuing an unusual explanatory statement. They noted that
deciding not to hear the case did "not in any way constitute a ruling on
the merits."
That is a legal truism that does not ordinarily need saying. Legal experts
said the statement suggested at least those 3 justices had reservations
about the Louisiana law.
Mr. Dieter of the death penalty center said the new laws could be
counterproductive. If offenders have nothing left to lose, they may be
more likely to kill victims. And the death penalty threat could make
victims of sex crimes by family members less likely to report them.
(source: New York Times)
Oklahoma became the 5th state to allow the death penalty for sex crimes
against children yesterday, a day after South Carolina enacted a similar
law. The constitutionality of the new laws is unclear.
The Oklahoma measure, signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat,
makes people found guilty of rape and other sex crimes more than once
against children younger than 14 eligible for the death penalty.
The South Carolina law also requires multiple offenses, but against
children under 11. Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, said in a statement
that the law would "be an incredibly powerful deterrent to offenders that
have already been released."
But Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment, said the new
laws were largely symbolic, would impose disproportionate punishment and
were probably unconstitutional.
There has not been an execution for rape in the United States since 1964,
and no one has been executed for any crime that did not involve a killing
since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Before the
Supreme Court suspended the death penalty in 1972, 16 states and the
federal government authorized it for rape.
In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could not be
imposed for the rape of an adult woman. The penalty was, the court ruled,
disproportionate to the crime and therefore forbidden as cruel and unusual
punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
"Life is over for the victim of the murderer," Justice Byron R. White
wrote for the majority. "For the rape victim, life may not be nearly so
happy as it was, but it is not over and normally is not beyond repair."
The defendant in that case, Ehrlich Coker, escaped from a state prison in
Georgia where he was serving time for a murder and 2 rapes. He soon raped
another woman in front of her husband. He was sentenced to death for that
last crime.
Dissenting from the majority decision to overturn Mr. Coker's death
sentence, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote that the ruling "prevents
the state from imposing any effective punishment upon Coker for his latest
rape."
At the time, Georgia was the lone state that permitted the death penalty
for the rape of adult women, a fact that the Supreme Court found
significant. In recent decisions barring the execution of juvenile
offenders and the mentally retarded, the court took careful stock of state
laws and trends in state legislatures to evaluate whether a societal
consensus existed to permit or bar capital punishment in given classes of
cases.
Trey Walker, chief executive assistant to Attorney General Henry McMaster
of South Carolina, said in an interview yesterday that "there will be more
and more" laws making sex crimes against children capital offenses.
"This is something the Supreme Court takes into account," Mr. Walker said.
"There is not much doubt that this law would be upheld and found
constitutional."
The other states with such laws are Florida, Louisiana and Montana. In
2003, a Louisianan, Patrick O. Kennedy, was sentenced to death under a law
enacted in 1995 that allows the death penalty for the rape of a child
under 12. His case is working its way through the courts.
In 1996, the Louisiana Supreme Court, in a 5-to-2 decision, ruled that the
law was constitutional.
The United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in that case in
1997, with 3 justices - Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John
Paul Stevens - issuing an unusual explanatory statement. They noted that
deciding not to hear the case did "not in any way constitute a ruling on
the merits."
That is a legal truism that does not ordinarily need saying. Legal experts
said the statement suggested at least those 3 justices had reservations
about the Louisiana law.
Mr. Dieter of the death penalty center said the new laws could be
counterproductive. If offenders have nothing left to lose, they may be
more likely to kill victims. And the death penalty threat could make
victims of sex crimes by family members less likely to report them.
(source: New York Times)