Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana law making child rape a capital offence

26.06.08

On Wednesday 25th June the Supreme Court passed judgment in the case of Kennedy v Louisiana, upholding the claims of 43-year old petitioner Patrick Kennedy that he was condemned under an unconstitutional law. He was sentenced to death in 2003 for allegedly raping his stepdaughter at their home in Harvey, Louisiana. The offence was alleged to have occurred in 1998, just three years after Louisiana became the first state to introduce the death penalty for the rape of children under 12 years old. Reprieve supported an attorney working on the Kennedy case at the trial stage.

Despite the fact that there has not been an execution in the US for a crime that did not involve the death of a victim for 44 years, since 1995 five other states had followed Louisiana’s lead in drafting laws imposing the death penalty for aggravated child rape. This fact was heavily relied on by the Louisiana Supreme Court in 2007 when dismissing Patrick Kennedy’s original appeal against his death sentence, but by a 5-4 majority the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the state court’s reasoning and struck the law down as a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Delivering the majority opinion of the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy pointed out that only six of the 37 US jurisdictions that have the death penalty have introduced the death penalty for child rape, proving that the national consensus is still against capital punishment in such cases. Justice Kennedy re-emphasised the importance that “capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution.’” Adding to this, he stated that: “As it relates to crimes against individuals, though, the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.”

Patrick Kennedy will now return to the state courts for resentencing. Richard Davis, another Louisiana man sentenced to death in December 2007 under the same statute, will also be resentenced.

Responding to the judgment, Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, said:

“Its been an interesting week in the Supreme Court – first they strike down the death penalty for rape of a child, then they announce you can keep a handgun in your house. Does this mean that the state can’t execute a child rapist, but you can shoot him yourself? Of course it’s heartening to see the Supreme Court do the right thing in a capital case.”

In the case of District of Columbia v Heller, decided only a day after Kennedy v Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and the right to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The District of Columbia’s laws banning handgun ownership and requiring that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock were therefore deemed unconstitutional.