When will SCOTUS address the constitutionality of the death penalty for child rape?
At SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston has this extended post discussing the filing of a petition for writ of certiorari in Kennedy v. Louisiana. The petition is available at this link, and here is the questions it presents:
1. Whether the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause permits a State to punish the crime of rape of a child with the death penalty.
2. If so, whether Louisiana’s capital rape statute violates the Eighth Amendment insofar as it fails genuinely to narrow the class of such offenders eligible for the death penalty.
Regular readers know these questions have been widely debated in lower courts and law review pages, Kennedy seems to be the first well-positioned case for the Supreme Court to take up these issue.
In my view, it is inevitable that the Supreme Court will address the constitutionality of capital punishment for child rape before anyone is actually executed for child rape. Still, one might develop a number of interesting Bickelian arguments for why the Justices should consider ducking this issue right now and taking it up only if and when this case goes through state and federal habeas review.
Some related posts:
- Direct test of constitutionality of the death penalty for child rape
- A capital experiment spreading in the state laboratories
- Analysis of capital child rape laws
- Debating death for child rape
- LA Times opposes death penalty for child rape for intriguing reason
- Could there be symbolic and practical value in making repeat child rape a capital offense?