Limiting the Death Penalty

The SC ruled that the death penalty should not be given to people convicted of child rape. While I am happy about any ruling that cuts back on capital punishment, I agree with Megan that some crimes may be worse than murder. Megan writes, "I don't see any particular reason to limit its application to murder. I can imagine much worse things than a quick, clean death."

If you had to bump someone off, I vote for this guy.

Comments

[dave.s.]

This baffles me. It seems to me that the legitimate locus for deciding what crimes are worthy of death is the legislature. If you don't like death penalty for child rape - get the legislatures to agree.

[Stranger]

I've read some of the sputtering on the conservative side of the internet.

I'm o.k. with life in prison, rather than execution, for the rape of a child. For one thing, I suspect the knowledge of a potential death sentence has to child murders. There was one case, a few years ago, in which most of a family was found murdered. The young daughter was found some time later, raped and murdered. The rapist and killer fled to Canada. If there had been no potential for the death penalty, would he have killed the family? We'll never know.

Of course, killing an entire family qualifies a killer for the death penalty, when one is available.