While I oppose the death penalty, I wonder where Justice Kennedy's brain was on this one.

FOXNews.com - U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Louisiana Law Allowing Execution for Child Rape - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

"In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

'The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years."


Interestingly...

"Victim advocates also warned the death penalty could do more harm than good if it led perpetrators to kill victims who may be the only witness to the crime."

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Any time this has been suggested and I've read about it I've tried to make the point that it endangers the victim. I wonder at the stunning stupidity of some legislators or perhaps it's not stupidity so much as pandering to populism. Either way it's a stupid thing to do, to sentence someone to death for any offence short of murder.

Some crimes are just so heinous, so offensive to civilized society, that one could see how those crimes warrant the death penalty. It is generally accepted that raping a child falls into that category.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Child rape is such a heinous crime that I have no problem with putting such lowlifes to death.

I wonder where Justice Kennedy's brain was when he said: What the heck would be a proportional punishment for such an atrocity?

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"Feminism has fought no wars.
It has killed no opponents.
It has set up no concentration camps,
starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties.
Its battles have been for education, for the vote,
for better working conditions ...
for safety on the streets, for child care,
for rape crisis clinics, women's refuges, reforms in the laws.
If someone says, "Oh, I'm not a feminist!", I ask,
"Why? What's your problem?" - Dale Spender

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Sticking them in a cell with another lifer named Bubba and telling him to have fun .

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This is a good ruling based on my moral opposition to the death penalty, and the practical reasons that Diuretic outlined.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

Everyone hates Rape and the rape of a child is appalling. but the courts decision was right.

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Leaving aside any objection to the death penalty in general, why is the court's decision right?

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Exactly. The government should not be in the business of executing people, so I support anything that limits their ability to do so.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

But other than our mutual objection to the death penalty, why was the Court's decision right?

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."