The justices ruled that such a punishment is cruel and unusual
Those people who rape children can no longer be executed, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. “The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in the 5-4 opinion. Joining him in the decision that the executions for such a crime violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment were the four more liberal members of the court – John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. No one has been executed for a crime that did not involve the death of a victim for some 44 years. The landmark case revolved around the Patrick Kennedy, a 43-year-old Louisiana man who was sentenced to die for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Another Louisianan was also condemned to death for rape. Executions for adult female rape victims was banned 31 years ago. During the Jim Crow era, Black men – even those falsely accused – were frequently executed by lynch mobs after being charged with rape. All but five states ban the death penalty for rape; the rest allow death for child rapists. If you’ve been previously convicted of raping a child in Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, you could be sentenced to death. Dissenting in Wednesday’s ruling were Clarence Thomas, Samuel Anthony Alito, Antonin Scalia and John G. Roberts, Jr. “The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave,” Alito wrote in the dissenting opinion. “It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty.” But, Kennedy said, the fact that very few states allow execution for rape proves “there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.”

Atlanta courthouse murder suspect wants the death penalty off the table
The Atlanta man accused of going on a killing spree during his daring courthouse escape three years ago is blaming the DA of covering up misconduct by the prosecutor and wants the death penalty taken off the table. Brian Nichols, whose defense is that his was mentally incapacitated when he allegedly snatched a deputy’s gun and shot to death a judge, court reporter, deputy and an immigration agent, is also asking that certain evidence be thrown out. Nichols was at a hearing on earlier rape charges when he managed the escape. He argues that the former prosecutor in that initial case, Gayle Abramson, who is likely to testify in the murder case, indulged in misconduct. Nichols’ defense team, however, has not divulged the alleged misconduct to the court, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. In a statement to the newspaper Tuesday, Abramson and her husband, Rand Csehy, also a Fulton prosecutor, said that Nichols’ attorneys are attempting to kill the case by smearing her with a wiretap conversation involving another murder investigation, the Journal-Constitution reports. “Not only is this document factually inaccurate and filled with intentional falsehoods, but it is incomplete,” the couple said of the complaint. Nichols accuses Abramson of socializing with a murder suspect and his friends while on a trip to California.