SLIDELL, La. (AP) — 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."
5 comments:
Ugh, Pope! This one's a doozy! :P
This is a tough topic for any rational human being. Doubly so for anyone who is a parent.
While I won't shed any tears for someone executed for child rape, I just don't know if I can personally justify capital punishment for a child rapist. (Well, I can if I think about it for too long... heh)
Now, as we all know, I do support the death penalty. But that support is contingent on the fact that it is applied properly and responsibly. To apply the death penalty to crimes other than murder is a slippery slope that I'm not comfortable with.
However, I don't feel that I have the moral authority to tell someone else that their community can't hold child rape to a higher standard of judgment than mine does. It's just one of those crimes that I feel is so heinous, so emotionally damaging and gruesome, that I can't fault a community of people for wanting to put the offender to death.
Hell, if something like this ever happened to my family, my opinion might change. I can't even rule out the notion that I wouldn't try to carry out such a sentence myself.
So if I were sitting on the Supreme Court, I would *probably* fall back to States Rights on this issue. I know it's a bit of a cop out... but even if I don't support the death penalty (right now) for this crime, I don't feel right telling other people that they are wrong to do so.
But, for the record, I probably *would* support life in prison without parole under the right circumstances.
I can think of few crimes more horrific than this one. And though I do agree with a lot of what you said Beck, I come down more on the federal side on this one just because of the 8th amendment. Granted, full disclosure here, I am opposed to the death penalty. And if there was an act I might just kill someone in the middle of, it would probably be child rape. Having said that, I assumed that the 1977 decision on rape would apply in this case too (even if it is child rape). I say life in prison, no possibility of parole, even... even in his next life.
And yeah, this one is f**ked up entry, thought it was interesting though.
Yeah, this one's a mofo.
And really, if one doesn't support the death penalty, then there really isn't much to argue in this particularly case. If you're not willing to execute someone for murder, then it stands to reason that you wouldn't be willing to execute them for "lesser" crimes.
If you can call it "lesser".
And on a second glance, I realize that I did not take into consideration the 1977 Supreme Court decision. In which case, I am inclined to apply it to child victims, too. I suppose it's just as silly to apply a harsher sentence based on age as it is to do so based on race or sexual orientation.
oh, wait...
I am going to go with the Pope here. I am opposed to the death penalty for murder, so while this is certainly one of the most repugnant crimes I can think of, it still seems like too much an extreme (and counterproductive) to apply the death penalty. In this case specifically I am bothered by the call for capital punishment because is it seems like more an act of vengeance than of punishment or prevention. Any individual that repeatedly abuses children in such a way is clearly depraved in the most serious of ways, so to argue that applying the death penalty for such a crime might act as a deterrent to other potential offenders is just kind of stupid. People this ill are not considering the potential ramifications in a meaningful enough way that they would stop and think "man, I should stop doing this because now in Louisiana I could be put to death." (Though I would argue this is likely to be true in a lot of murder cases as well). I also agree with some of the opponents quoted in the article that raising these stakes so high might encourage some offenders just to kill their victims. If we can assume that offenders are acting rationally (and thus making an argument for the preventive effect of the death penalty), we also have to assume they are smart enough to way out that if child rape=death and child murder=death then killing the child in order to prevent them from testifying is the "rational" choice. So I guess I don't see the validity on either the moral or practical side. Length prison, life-long monitoring of some kind, court mandated hormone suppression (e.g. chemical castration), etc., etc. All fine.
Ugh - this one is a doozy. As I have said many times I'm never sure how I feel about the death penalty (in the case of murder or rape). My visceral reaction particularly when I think "what would I do if this were my situation" is kill them, kill them all, kill them slowly painfully and horribly. When I try to temper that with reason and my knowledge that taking a life will not bring one back in return nor will it remove the scars left by a heinous crime - I end up back in the "maybe the death penalty isn't wrong" column.
Of note - depending on your interpretation of the circles Dante most likely intended for both rapists and murderers to inhabit the same circle of hell.
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