Well..... - IT'S ABOUT TIME
mckayleesmom wrote: Death Penalty in Some Cases of Child Sex Is Widening
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By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: June 10, 2006
Oklahoma became the fifth 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 two 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 three 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 three 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.
mckayleesmom replied: Hopefully the rest of the states will follow 
msoulz replied: In my younger years I thought the death penalty was the way to go. Now I wonder about that. It seems more cruel to keep someone locked up for the rest of his life - death seems like an easy way out. But then, it is for certain that person will never commit such a crime again.
Plus I understand crimes against children are taboo in prisons, and those found guilty are often the "bad guys" in prison, so they get additional punishment. Works for me.
mckayleesmom replied:
I agree....in a nice world...they would suffer in prison forever. The problem and reason they always release them is because they are overpopulated with them. They always claim that they are "changed and not a threat to society", but really they just boot them out of the system because they are just so overpopulated with them. Then they get out and rape and kill a child or something and they act shocked, but they really are not shocked...they know it will happen in a matter of time, but in the meantime they have more room in the prisons.
So Im all for the death penalty in these cases. I would rather them be dead then ruining another persons life and childhood.
redchief replied: Some of you will look at me like I have a third head, but I don't think governments should kill the incarcerated. I'm against the death penalty in all cases. I do, however, think those pervs should never see the light of day again.
My3LilMonkeys replied:
My feelings exactly.
luvmykids replied: I'm not sure how I feel about the death penalty, but I am very happy to hear that crimes against children seem to be taken more seriously now than ever. It is definitely not a moment too soon for that.
My2Beauties replied: I have always been very wishy washy on the subject of the death penalty. In some extreme cases - Jeffrey Daumer, Texas Massacre guy (what's his name?  ) etc.. - I agree with it, because they were serial killers and all of their crimes were pre-meditated and just absolutely sicko in my opinion, but then there is the other side of me who feels that the justice system is so unfair that more non-whites are subject to be put to death than whites. I mean how do you solve murder by murdering someone?? It's just a sore subject for me in some cases. BUT...and that is a big BUT....if a tragedy such as murder ever were to happen to someone I cared for, I'd probably wish the person that did it dead - it's just one of those thigns you never really know how you feel unless you are faced with the reality!
mckayleesmom replied: I have usually been wishy washy also, but in this case...I think its a good plan.....WHY? What happens every time you hear about a child being molested and murdered?...You find out the person responsible just got out of prison for the same thing. WHY? Because they claim they are cured and not a danger to society any longer........but that is never true....If it comes down to keeping children safe from these men...then so be it...I don't want them returned to neighborhoods where there are helpless victims all around. Unless they do something about the growing number of these pervs in the prison system...they are going to continue to put them back out on the streets with our babies. Maybe, JUST MAYBE....if they knew the penalty for abusing a child..they would think twice about it. It might just save a couple kids from losing their childhoods or woman from living in fear.
TheOaf66 replied: I am all for it, my state is trying to get the death penalty back
Hillbilly Housewife replied: Maybe this is politically incorrect to post... but I think punishments should be like in 3rd world countries....very basic, swift, and strict.
You steal, you lose your hand.
You molest someone, you should be molested in turn, then castrated.
You kill someone (murder, not accidentally of course) you should be killed the same way
yea - not bloody likely... but at least they would get what they deserved. Nobody who commits a crime should have the same rights and freedoms that we work hard to keep.
ZandersMama replied:
thank you redchief i thought i would be the odd ball here. the way i look at it is I am not God, only he should control who lives and dies.
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