News & Politics - Death penalty for child rape is fought

migamoo · 04-14-2008, 07:22 PM

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Death penalty for child rape is fought - Yahoo! News

SLIDELL, La. - When the news broke last month that a janitor had been arrested and accused of raping boys in the bathroom at an elementary school, the issue of justice and retribution became the talk around dinner tables and baseball fields.

Castrate him, some said. No, let the other inmates deal with him. No, execute him.

Castration and jailhouse vigilantism are out of the question, but putting a child rapist to death is within the bounds of Louisiana law.

For how much longer?

That's a question the U.S. Supreme Court takes up Wednesday when it hears arguments on whether a state can impose the death penalty for the rape of a child, or whether that would amount to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution.

Supporters of Louisiana's law argue that child rape is so evil and so utterly traumatizing that justice cries out for death. But others warn that the law will further traumatize youngsters and make rapists more likely to kill their victims.

In 1977, the Supreme Court said states cannot execute anyone for the rape of an adult. But the high court did not address the rape of a child.

The last time someone in the U.S. was executed for something other than murder was in 1964, when a man went to the electric chair in Alabama for robbery. That same year, a man in Missouri went to the gas chamber in what was the last time someone in this country was put to death for rape.

Louisiana is the only state with someone on death row for rape of an adult or child. In fact, it has two people awaiting execution for child rape. At least five other states — Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas — have similar laws.

"These are the only two men on any death row in any Western democracy for this offense," said Billy Sothern, a lawyer with the Capital Appeals Project, a nonprofit law firm that represents the Louisiana man at the center of the Supreme Court case, Patrick Kennedy.

Kennedy, a 43-year-old man with an IQ of 70, was convicted and sentenced to death for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1998 in Harvey, a New Orleans suburb.

The Louisiana law — which applies to anyone found guilty of aggravated rape of a child 12 or younger — breezed through the state Legislature in 1995; members got sidetracked only over whether to castrate child rapists.

"That's one of my proudest pieces of legislation," said former state Rep. Pete Schneider, a Slidell brick manufacturer and Republican.

The other man on death row in Louisiana for child rape is Richard Davis, convicted of repeatedly attacking a 5-year-old girl he looked after with his girlfriend in 2004 and 2005. The man who prosecuted him, Brady O'Callaghan, said child rape deserves the death penalty.

"It is so evil. There is no justification for it," he said. "This isn't a heat-of-passion killing. It's not about money."

Opponents, including the National Association of Social Workers and the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, warn that the prospect of the death penalty could give child rapists a powerful incentive to kill their victims. They might figure they have nothing to lose by killing the lone witness.

Also, child advocates warn that children, in many cases, are raped by people they know, and executing a relative could traumatize a youngster. Also, the law might make it harder to prosecute such cases by making children afraid to speak up for fear of what might happen to a relative, said Dr. Scott Benton, a pediatric forensic physician.

The debate has flared anew in Slidell, where 41-year-old janitor Dino Jay Schwertz was accused last month of child rape. Police say he confessed to the crimes.

His voice rising over the clang of baseball bats and clapping from the crowd at an after-school game, mortgage-company loan officer Cedric Bayone said he might support the death penalty in a child rape case.

"We've got to send a message to all these sex offenders: We're not playing when it comes to our children," he said.

But Penny Robertson, a mother of three, opposes the death penalty for a child rapist: "He's going to get it either way it goes. God's going to get him in the end. Death is the easy out for him, and I don't think he deserves an easy out."

I've never really been a fan of capital punishment, but I have to agree, this goes a bit far I think. Nor am I saying I like the prison system as it is right now, but that's for a different thread.

**sum1** · 04-14-2008, 09:22 PM

No way should there be the death penalty for anything that's not murder. And even for murder it should ony be used when they're super-certain of guilt and the crime is especially bad, like for serial killers and terrorists. And it's safer to have no death penalty at all so as not to run the risk of executing any innocents by mistake. I'm glad my country doesn't do executions, but at the same time I can't say I'm sorry people were able to bring in the death penalty for Saddam. Some people deserve it. But it's very scary when people are too eager with the death penalty.

**Tomorrow's skies** · 04-14-2008, 09:31 PM

I think all rapists should get the death penalty, but especially if their victims are children.

**sum1** · 04-14-2008, 09:40 PM

The death penalty cannot be justified for anything other than murder. Only killing can justify killing as a reaction.

*Ledi* · 04-14-2008, 10:06 PM

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Originally Posted by sum1 (View Post)

The death penalty cannot be justified for anything other than murder. Only killing can justify killing as a reaction.

The death penalty cannot be justified for anything, in my opinion. However, I do know that other people feel differently, especially the ones affected by crime.

I personally find sex offenders to be as bad as murderers, especially child sex offenders. They ruin people's lives forever.

**TheAngel** · 04-15-2008, 03:58 AM

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Originally Posted by *Ledi* (View Post)

The death penalty cannot be justified for anything, in my opinion. However, I do know that other people feel differently, especially the ones affected by crime.

I personally find sex offenders to be as bad as murderers, especially child sex offenders. They ruin people's lives forever.

I agree. I almost feel sex offenders are worse because at least the victims of murders are not forced to live with the pain and shame of what has been done to them for the rest of their lives. After all, what is done to a five year old child will haunt them for the rest of their lives and suffer from depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and a plethora of other issues they're going to have to deal with for their entire lives, as well as issues their families will have to deal with. I don't really have a problem with the death penalty as long as there is irrefutable DNA evidence, but the US allows so many appeals, even when there is irrefutable DNA evidence, that the death penalty becomes even more expensive to the tax payer than keeping someone in jail for their entire life does so it's not worth it. I say sex offenders should be kept out of solitary confinement though. Let the other inmates have their fun. Even they have a code of justice when it comes to abusing children.

migamoo · 04-15-2008, 09:05 AM

A friend and I were at work the other day, and a topic came up of a guy in the local news who murdered his children. A customer was telling us this, and sh said that one of his friends in vehemently against the death penalty but has no issues with torture. Judy, my friend, said that she didn't mind that either. The family members of the victim should be able to be in a room with the offender and be able to go to town.

notthatfarapart · 04-15-2008, 09:25 AM

I do not normally support death penalty, but for child abusers this is the only solution. 1) they don't deserve to live, they don't deserve to be even called human beings, and there is no cure. It's both physical and a phsychological "disease" and there is no anti-virus for that. 2) I seriously doubt child molesters even regret the things what they've done; yes, their deeds will haunt them and perhaps they will suffer it and they want to stop it, but they can't, and they will keep doing it over and over again, child after child, unless someone stops them. Although I do believe that in some sense they realise what they've done is utterly twisted and wrong and unnatural behaviour, but that little tone of conscience is quickly silenced and they'll rather obey the sick beast in their head. The children that have been sexually abused will never recover. Never. Their own notion of sexuality can be extremely confused; "he/she did this to me, can I do it to others, too?"
And that creates the never-ending circle which only surrounds the fact that those whom have been abused will become abusers. I'm not saying that it's for certain that a molested child will necessarily turn into a pedophile when adultery begins, but it's a possibility. It triggers the trauma they have experienced as a child when they have been abused and they start to think can they do the same to others, I'm sure of it.

I remember watching a document about pedophiles being released back to the society. The document interviewed some of the child abusers and they said that they have to fight the feeling everyday when seeing a kid somewhere. Some of the abusers went through phsychological treatment and they were under some sort of medication as well but some said that none of that really worked; the itch to ravish a child kept coming back.

I loathe child molesters from the bottom of my heart. What they can do to an innocent child (not even mentioning the suffering that the child's family has to go through when they heard their kid has been severely abused and eternally bruised) is a horrible deed and they have to be punished for it, and the only reasonable punishment I can think of is death. They just don't deserve to live. No murder or killing or mugging is not compareable to the crime that child abusers commit.

***Jerry D*** · 04-15-2008, 10:02 AM

Raping a child, or raping anyone for that matter is one of the most heinous crimes that I can think of, but I don’t know if the death penalty is the answer. I do think that someone that commits such a crime should be locked up without the possibility of parole.

migamoo · 04-15-2008, 12:42 PM

Jerry, what about adding solitary confinement to that as well?

**sum1** · 04-15-2008, 01:23 PM

People seem to be forgetting how easily somebody can be falsely accused of child rape. It's been demonstrated that kids can be surprisingly easily talked into dreaming up false accounts of sexual assault of various kinds (including rape) and authorities have made a habit of interpreting things children say to mean they're concealing that they were sexually assaulted or raped. There have been cases in which innocent people have been put through hell based on false accusations. What if you execute somebody for child rape and then they turn out to be innocent, will you bring them back to life?

Plus it's very scary when people start demanding the death penalty for anything other than murder. Despite the heinousness of child rape, nothing other than killing can in any way justify execution. Only killing can merit killing.

And no there is nothing worse than murder. Or as bad. No matter how much somebody might suffer when they're alive they're still alive. When somebody is dead they're gone, all possibilities extinguished. To say any crime is as bad as murder (or worse) is to devalue life. In particular such thinking is dangerous to people who are at risk of suicide. Suicide risk people need to be reminded that as long as somebody lives no matter how much they might suffer there is at least the slightest chance of the smallest positive but that when they're dead there's no hope, everything is gone. To tell them anything is as bad as being killed is to lessen the enormity of dying and thus lessen the deterrent against suicide. Particularly if you tell a rape victim that being raped is as bad as being killed -then a suicide-risk rape victim may think "If killing myself is no worse than what I've gone through then why not kill myself?" You're playing with fire when you act like anything is as bad as death and killing somebody. To do so is to do a serious disservice to vulnerable people and devalue life. Nothing is as bad as murder.

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Originally Posted by TheAngel (View Post)

I don't really have a problem with the death penalty as long as there is irrefutable DNA evidence

DNA evidence is not 100% reliable.

*Ledi* · 04-15-2008, 04:28 PM

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Originally Posted by sum1 (View Post)

You're playing with fire when you act like anything is as bad as death and killing somebody. To do so is to do a serious disservice to vulnerable people and devalue life. Nothing is as bad as murder.

How are we playing with fire or devaluing life? Everything we (all of us) have said is based on opinion, so you can't really say that we are wrong for feeling the way we do. Just like I can't say that you are wrong for thinking that the death penalty is justified only when murder takes place.

abw92 · 04-15-2008, 05:24 PM

IMO child rape deserves life in prison. No parrole. If a person has done it to multiple children, they deserve the death penalty. I wouldn't have a problem with someone getting the death penalty for raping one child though.

I hate how that a sex offender can be released from prison and then they are put into a neighborhood with children around. That is the stupidest thing. The sex offender will just rape another kid.

**sum1** · 04-15-2008, 06:54 PM

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Originally Posted by *Ledi* (View Post)

How are we playing with fire or devaluing life?

I explained how it's playing with fire. It's obvious from my post. As for devaluing life, killing is more serious than any other crime because it involves the loss of life and life is so important. The presence or lack of life is more important than anything else (hence the phrase "life or death" meaning as serious as possible). To say anything is as important is to demote the importance of life. To say something is as bad as killing is to say something is as important as life. Which is demoting the importance of life, devaluing life. Life is above anything else in importance and we shouldn't devalue it by acting like anything else is as important. Devaluing life is very dangerous, for a wide range of reasons. We should never devalue life. And really I think all that is very obvious and didn't need explaining.

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Originally Posted by *Ledi* (View Post)

Everything we (all of us) have said is based on opinion, so you can't really say that we are wrong for feeling the way we do. Just like I can't say that you are wrong for thinking that the death penalty is justified only when murder takes place.

That's not true. Of course I can say you're wrong. You're wrong. People say each other's opinions are wrong all the time. It would be a good idea to get used to it.

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Originally Posted by abw92 (View Post)

If a person has done it to multiple children, they deserve the death penalty. I wouldn't have a problem with someone getting the death penalty for raping one child though.

I find it very scary to see anybody supporting the death penalty for anything other than murder. That's being too free with killing. Only a crime that involves deliberate killing can justify a punishment that involves deliberate killing. Only a crime as serious as murder can justify a punishment as serious as murder, and there's no other crime as serious as murder. To give out the death penalty for crimes less serious (no matter how horrible and depraved) is to be to free with killing. And that is very scary.

Personally, as I've said before, I'd prefer if the death penalty were reserved for stuff more serious than the ordinary murder, like murder by terrorism and serial killing. And even then it's safer to have no death penalty at all to avoid the risk of executing the innocent by accident. Throwing around the death penalty for less than murder is deeply wrong.

If the death penalty were reserved for especially serious cases of murder then one type it might be appopriate for is when somebody rapes a child and then murders them. That sort of crime happens all too often and something needs to be done about it. But you'd still need to be absolutely certain the accused was guilty of the crime.

*Ledi* · 04-15-2008, 10:10 PM

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Originally Posted by sum1 (View Post)

I explained how it's playing with fire. It's obvious from my post. As for devaluing life, killing is more serious than any other crime because it involves the loss of life and life is so important. The presence or lack of life is more important than anything else (hence the phrase "life or death" meaning as serious as possible). To say anything is as important is to demote the importance of life. To say something is as bad as killing is to say something is as important as life. Which is demoting the importance of life, devaluing life. Life is above anything else in importance and we shouldn't devalue it by acting like anything else is as important. Devaluing life is very dangerous, for a wide range of reasons. We should never devalue life. And really I think all that is very obvious and didn't need explaining.

You think nothing is as bad as murder, but that is clearly not the case with most people that have posted in this thread. So, I guess you're wrong for having that opinion.

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Originally Posted by sum1 (View Post)

That's not true. Of course I can say you're wrong. You're wrong. People say each other's opinions are wrong all the time. It would be a good idea to get used to it. It would be a good idea to get used to it.

We are wrong based on what, exactly? Having a different opinion than yours?

It would also be a good idea if you could be a little more respectful with your (last) words, and also realize that people aren't wrong just because they have a different opinion or simply feel differently about certain issues.


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