US high court mulls death for child rape
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments on whether the rape of a child is punishable by death, a penalty which for the past 30 years has only been handed down on murder cases.
The case is an appeal by lawyers for Patrick Kennedy, 43, a Louisiana man sentenced to death in 2003 for raping his girlfriend's eight-year old daughter.
Prosecutors in a handful of states have argued in favor of the death penalty when children are raped.
Texas solicitor general, Ted Cruz, told the justices there is "unique and irreparable harm caused by violent child rape," and states should be free to impose the severest possible punishment.
"I would fully expect, in time, some states would act to establish capital punishment and others would not. That's precisely how the laboratories of democracy should operate," Cruz said.
Since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, it has only been carried out for crimes of murder.
In 1977 the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a rapist, saying the punishment for the crime was excessive and fell under the constitution's proscription of "cruel and unusual" punishment.
But in May, the Louisiana state supreme court endorsed Kennedy's sentence, saying the 1977 ruling applied to the rape of an adult and not of a child. Kennedy's lawyers then appealed to the US high court.
The case comes as laws and punishments for sexual abuse of children have been toughened, with often the minimum jail term set at 25 years.
Five states have set the death penalty as the maximum for the crime, although it has rarely been handed down: only one other rapist has been sentenced to death, also in Louisiana last month -- a man convicted of abusing a neighbor's daughter several times in 2004.
A decision in the case is expected by July.
