“Kennedy was convicted of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter in her bed. The attack caused severe emotional trauma, internal injuries and bleeding to the child, requiring extensive surgery, Louisiana prosecutors said.”
Well, I know 5 judges who need to see a little girl and her colostomy.
Rape is punishable by death IMO, regardless of age of recipient.
Look, this guy had Alan Shore representing him… not to mention Denny Crane.
There was no way he was going to fry.
For those who care to read it:
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Look, this guy had Alan Shore representing him… not to mention Denny Crane.
There was no way he was going to fry.[/quote]
So these are some heavy hitting lawyers I guess? You clearly know more about this than I do.
I’m speaking generally though, not this one guy. Child rapists would be worth more as fertilizer.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
nephorm wrote:
Look, this guy had Alan Shore representing him… not to mention Denny Crane.
There was no way he was going to fry.
So these are some heavy hitting lawyers I guess? You clearly know more about this than I do.
I’m speaking generally though, not this one guy. Child rapists would be worth more as fertilizer.[/quote]
Very heavy hitting:
[i] Alan Shore was born in 1962 in Dedham, Massachusetts. He is of Scottish descent; his great-grandfather emigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1903. Alan’s childhood friends include Paul Stewart, whom he first met in kindergarten, and Tom Dougan, who later became a priest. Alan slept with Paul’s mother when he was 16. He lost his virginity at age 14 to a friend of his mother. One of his neighbors was Catherine Piper, his future secretary. According to one of his courtroom speeches, Alan has a sister, although he might have made her up for the purposes of that speech. At one point in his life, he had to seek the help of a sexual surrogate to help him deal with perhaps his most shocking paraphilia: an attraction of sorts to his mother, and the way she touched him (non-sexually) as a child.
Alan was once married, but his wife died. In Boston Legal, he talks about his deceased wife and how she was able to guess accurately what he would think and do. Alan speaks of his wife in a loving way, however, and expresses the otherwise unseen emotion of regret for her passing. It is noted that he was irritated at her uncommon ability to guess his every thought, even when he was trying to be unpredictable. Often, many of Alan’s behaviors support this claim.
Alan states on numerous occasions that he is sure that his final fate will be murder. He voices concern, although only to Denny Crane, that he fears waking up alone as he is sure that, in a previous life, he was murdered in his sleep.[/i]
This slightly less colorful guy argued it too:
[i]Jeffrey L. Fisher
A leading Supreme Court litigator and nationally recognized expert on criminal procedure, Jeffrey Fisher has argued several and worked on dozens of other cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. His successes include bringing and winning the landmark cases of Blakely v. Washington, in which the Court held the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial applies to sentencing guidelines and Crawford v. Washington, in which he persuaded the Court to adopt a new approach to the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause.
In 2006, the National Law Journal named Professor Fisher one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. In addition to his Supreme Court practice, Professor Fisher has published several articles on various criminal and constitutional issues, and he speaks regularly to judicial conferences and leading legal organizations. He joined the law school faculty from the national law firm of Davis Wright & Tremaine LLP where he also offered his services pro bono to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Professor Fisher clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. [/i]
http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/164/Jeffrey%20L.%20Fisher/
One of the issues the Court raised in making its decision, since “cruel and unusual” is based on a murky weighing of “societal standards”, was that a murderer was more “morally depraved” than a child rapist.
If you can stomach the details, you should read the fact scenario that led to this case and decide for yourself if, in fact, someone who kills another is more “morally depraved” than the defendant in this case.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
nephorm wrote:
Look, this guy had Alan Shore representing him… not to mention Denny Crane.
There was no way he was going to fry.
So these are some heavy hitting lawyers I guess? You clearly know more about this than I do.
I’m speaking generally though, not this one guy. Child rapists would be worth more as fertilizer.[/quote]
Sorry, I probably should not have made light of the case. Stupid TV reference.
I’ll say right off the top, that I’m biased.
I just don’t understand this ruling at all…
In many ways, the little stepdaughter in Louisiana WAS “killed”; her cervix was ripped from her vagina; her perineum torn; internal organs were injured and bruised, leading to internal bleeding; and she has emotional scars that she will never recover from.
She is killed in every way possible, except that she is still on this Earth breathing, in who knows what kind of emotional state.
And when guys like this are let loose, they will repeat their crime. They are never “cured”.
You mean to tell me that some guy who shoots someone in a drug deal, who dies immediately, is more “depraved” than this guy?
And where in the hell did the Supreme Court get this “national consensus” that a child rapist did not deserve to die; the Taliban?
I’m all ears to whomever wants to explain to me why this was a good decision.
Mufasa
(P.S. BB: You’ve got to weigh in on this one, Brother…)
Thankfully, child rapists are often killed in prison. And in a much more ‘cruel and unusual’ ways too.
Personally, I would be happy with burying them alive in an unmarked grave. But that’s just me.
Just the USSC making things up and sticking them into the Constitution again…
Per Alito’s withering dissent:
[i]A major theme of the Court’s opinion is that permitting the death penalty in child-rape cases is not in the best interests of the victims of these crimes and society at large. In this vein, the Court suggests that it is more painful for child-rape victims to testify when the prosecution is seeking the death penalty. Ante, at 32. The Court also argues that “a State that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim,” ante, at 35, and may discourage the reporting of child rape, ante, at 34-35.
These policy arguments, whatever their merits, are simply not pertinent to the question whether the death penalty is “cruel and unusual” punishment. The Eighth Amendment protects the right of an accused. It does not authorize this Court to strike down federal or state criminal laws on the ground that they are not in the best interests of crime victims or the broader society. The Court’s policy arguments concern matters that legislators should-and presumably do-take into account in deciding whether to enact a capital child-rape statute, but these arguments are irrelevant to the question that is before us in this case. Our cases have cautioned against using " ‘the aegis of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause’ to cut off the normal democratic processes," Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 323 (2002) (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting), in turn quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 176 (1976), (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.), but the Court forgets that warning here.[/i]
Also, note this follows the previously stated (in another thread) rule that 5-4 decisions authored by Kennedy will be logically muddled.
Note that the national consensus would seem to favor putting child rapists to death. See here: The Volokh Conspiracy - -
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Note that the national consensus would seem to favor putting child rapists to death. See here: The Volokh Conspiracy - -
[/quote]
It seems Roberts and Scalia weren’t on board for the trend. When Fisher addressed the “trend” and “evolving standards of decency” in his oral argument (citing a pair of recent cases that banned capital punishment for mentally retarded offenders and juvenile offenders) Roberts corrected Fisher, pointing out that states are increasingly passing statutes imposing the death penalty in non-homicide cases. Scalia supported him.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Thankfully, child rapists are often killed in prison. And in a much more ‘cruel and unusual’ ways too. [/quote]
We can only hope that is his fate.
WWJD?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
WWJD?[/quote]
Jesus didn’t stop capital punishment.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
WWJD?
Jesus didn’t stop capital punishment.[/quote]
From what I understand, with exception to a few miracles, Jesus didn’t really stop anything.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
WWJD?[/quote]
Condemn them to a fiery pit of hell to forever burn?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
WWJD?
Jesus didn’t stop capital punishment.
From what I understand, with exception to a few miracles, Jesus didn’t really stop anything. [/quote]
He turned water into wine so we know he stopped sobriety.
I’m probably gonna get flamed for this…
→ If you interpret my post to mean that I support child rape or this guy I will call you a fucktard to your face. Read what I wrote. ←
SCOTUS did the right thing. Sure this guy deserves to burn in Hell, but there are two issues here. The first is what the letter of the law is. It was on that basis that SCOTUS said what it said and that is the correct interpretation.
You can find anyone who is sufficiently sick that they can turn most crime into an atrocity – like this guy. But do you let the extreme case change the law? Then we will have the death sentence for robbery and who knows what else and the US legal system will look mighty damn medieval.
The other issue – again I’m a martial artist – has to do with an agenda that states that all rape is worse than murder and therefore deserves death. I have seen this bandied about as part of an extreme agenda and I’m sorry, it is wrong. Rape is (normally) a crime of violence and should be treated as such even though sex is involved.
Here is where I’m coming from: A lot of self-defense instructors would tell you that rape is so awful, deserving death and eternal damnation that even the hint of it should be sufficient to excuse any excess. That’s right, so if you beat the shit out of someone you should be able to claim that you thought he might perhaps be thinking of raping you and that would enough.
This is just another form of vigilante thinking which also cannot be condoned. A lot of self-defense schools will teach you nothing more than assault and battery with no attempt made to sort it all out.
I’d give the guy a month in prison tops, btw…
– jj