Post by ozbilby on Jun 10, 2006 21:45:13 GMT -5
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3955844.html
Oklahoma became the fifth state to allow the death penalty for sex crimes against children Friday, a day after South Carolina enacted a similar law.
The constitutionality of the new laws is unclear.
The Oklahoma measure, signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, makes people found guilty of rape and other sex crimes more than once against children younger than 14 eligible for the death penalty.
The South Carolina law also requires multiple offenses, but against children younger than 11.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, said in a statement that the law would "be an incredibly powerful deterrent to offenders that have already been released."
Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment, said the new laws were largely symbolic, would impose disproportionate punishment and were probably unconstitutional.
In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could not be imposed on someone convicted for the rape of an adult woman.
The penalty was, the court ruled, disproportionate to the crime and therefore forbidden as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
"Life is over for the victim of the murderer," Justice Byron R. White
wrote for the majority. "For the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, but it is not over and normally is not beyond repair."
Trey Walker, chief executive assistant to Attorney General Henry McMaster of South Carolina, said in an interview Friday that "there will be more and more" laws making sex crimes against children capital offenses.
"This is something the Supreme Court takes into account," Walker said.
"There is not much doubt that this law would be upheld and found constitutional."
The other states with such laws are Florida, Louisiana and Montana.
In 2003, a Louisianan, Patrick O. Kennedy, was sentenced to death under law enacted in 1995 that allows the death penalty for the rape of a child younger than 12.
His case is working its way through the courts.
Brought to you by the HoustonChronicle.com
Oklahoma became the fifth state to allow the death penalty for sex crimes against children Friday, a day after South Carolina enacted a similar law.
The constitutionality of the new laws is unclear.
The Oklahoma measure, signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, makes people found guilty of rape and other sex crimes more than once against children younger than 14 eligible for the death penalty.
The South Carolina law also requires multiple offenses, but against children younger than 11.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, said in a statement that the law would "be an incredibly powerful deterrent to offenders that have already been released."
Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment, said the new laws were largely symbolic, would impose disproportionate punishment and were probably unconstitutional.
In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could not be imposed on someone convicted for the rape of an adult woman.
The penalty was, the court ruled, disproportionate to the crime and therefore forbidden as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
"Life is over for the victim of the murderer," Justice Byron R. White
wrote for the majority. "For the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, but it is not over and normally is not beyond repair."
Trey Walker, chief executive assistant to Attorney General Henry McMaster of South Carolina, said in an interview Friday that "there will be more and more" laws making sex crimes against children capital offenses.
"This is something the Supreme Court takes into account," Walker said.
"There is not much doubt that this law would be upheld and found constitutional."
The other states with such laws are Florida, Louisiana and Montana.
In 2003, a Louisianan, Patrick O. Kennedy, was sentenced to death under law enacted in 1995 that allows the death penalty for the rape of a child younger than 12.
His case is working its way through the courts.
Brought to you by the HoustonChronicle.com