Court bans death penalty for child rape

That is a beginning, stop all state sponsored murders. How do we expect our citizenry to respect life, sacred life, and then we say it is okay for our representatives to commit murder in our name !! Of course, it doesn't help if we are brutalizing a nation, Iraq, for their Oil fields!!! Please, no nonsense about them coming over here, that argument is almost as bogus as the Bush administration !!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

The U.S. should join the rest of the civilized world and end state sponsored murder.

Anyone who thinks this is letting criminals off easy should talk to corrections officers who oversee these prisoners. These convicts lives are a lot of things, but easy isn't one of them.

I understand the thinking behind the decision but it's important to note that the liberal kooks on this site are again taking liberties with language. A just punishment for the unlawful taking of another human life does not equal "state sponsored murder."

I think this is akin to removing capital punishment from schools years ago. Time has taught us that when penalties are lessened, people will not second guess themselves before having a lapse of judgement. Just look at how today's kids have no respect for themselves, teachers, parents, and anyone else in a position of authority. Do we really want the same thing happening for child rapists?

Sorry, Jeff, but yes it is. There is nothing more pre-meditated than the death penalty. As the great lwayer Clearance Darrow argued durnig the Leopold and Loeb trial here in Chicago, in convincing the judge to consider life in prison intstead of the Death Penalty, he said: "If these boys are to die, you must do it. It must be your own, cool, premediated act. A court of law should not be as cruel as the mad act of these two boys." How true.

Being a Republican is cool!! You can come up with so many deranged "principles" that are completely detached from logic. Case in point: Republics say, no federal government should have the authority to tax income. Yet curiously the federal government can take a life. The right to take a life is the ultimate grant of authority, so if the federal government can electrocute or poison a citizen, surely it has the authority to levy any taxes it pleases.

I did not think it was necessary to chime in but clearly I have no choice after Aaron Straub shared with us his low intelligence. This court decision is NOT a green light to rape children, no matter how liberal you think the justices are.

Um Aaron, I guess you have been in a cave the last 30 years while capital punishment has been around. didnt seem to stop students from killing their fellow students and teachers so many times. And not to mention all the killings from street gangs etc. So shut up already with your ignorant analagies!

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Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | June 25, 2008 11:06 AM

Don,
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At common law and under the law of every state, murder is the "unlawful" killing of a human being. A state sanctioned execution is, by definition, not unlawful because it is sanction by law. Thus, no lawful executions upon conviction for a capital offense, the crime and punishment having been fixed prior in time, can qualify as murder. Just keep that in mind the next time you take off on another one of your anarchist rants on the subject.

"The U.S. should join the rest of the civilized world and end state sponsored murder."
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Posted by: Doug "Hussein" Zook | June 25, 2008 11:19 AM
Doug,
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Define the "rest of the civilized world." Is that limited to some, but not all, countries in Europe and the Western Hemisphere? Most everybody else has capital punishment. Do you suggest we should amend the Constitution – which recognizes the lawfulness of capital punishment? As for your characterization of capital punishment as "state sponsored murder" look at my reply to Don Fitzgerald.

"Evolving standards of decency" == whatever side of the bed Anthony Kennedy gets up on in the morning.

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Posted by: King Ralph | June 25, 2008 1:15 PM
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King Ralph:
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No Republicans claim that the federal government (singular) lacks the power to tax incomes. That would be a rather stupid thing to say given that the Sixteenth Amendment grants Congress that power explicitly. Likewise, the 5th Amendment to the Constitution explicitly recognizes the power of the federal government to execute criminals, subject only to the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. States have always had the power of capital punishment, subject only to the limitations of the 8th and 14th Amendments. Thus, there is no inconsistency between the power of any government to execute criminals and its power of taxation. All of it is there in the Constitution if you care to look.

"Evolving standards of decency" == whatever side of the bed Anthony Kennedy gets up on in the morning."
Posted by: bruce | June 25, 2008 2:11 PM
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Not exactly, bruce. The court already decided the issue once before in a case called Coker v. Georgia. The only difference between Coker and the present case is that the rape victim in Coker was an adult woman. All the same, the Court determined in Coker that the ultimate punishment of death should be reserved for those most heinous crimes in which a life was taken. I had assumed, after reading Coker, that the death penalty could only be inflicted in homicide cases. Thus, rather than being arbitrary, the decision in this case was totally foreseeable on the basis of the Coker decision.

Hey John W, I suggest you do your research before youopen your mouth... AGian!
"The United States (the federal government and 36 of its states), Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the majority of democracies in Asia (e.g. Japan and India) and Africa (e.g. Botswana and Zambia) retain the death penalty. ALl other WESTERN civilizations abolished the death penalty.

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Posted by: Scot S. Blakeley | June 25, 2008 2:31 PM
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Scott, your ignorance is appalling. Russia, Belarus and Latvia are all European countries, "civilized countries" as well as part of "Western Civilization." None of them have abolished the death penalty. Greece is also a European Country, and, indeed the cradle of western civilization. Yet, it, too, provides for the death penalty in limited, extraordinary cases.
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In the "Western Hemisphere" - since, contrary to your point - we were speaking about "civilized countries" and not merely "western civilization" - Belize has the death penalty (in addition to those you mentioned), and Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and El Salvador all have capital punishment for a limited number of offenses.
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The countries with the largest populations in the world, China and India; along with most countries of Asia and Africa, and including all predominantly Muslim countries (except Turkey), have the death penalty.
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Scott, I challenge you to "exclude" from "the rest of the civilized world" (quoting Doug) many of the countries that you admit have the death penalty. Are you telling me, for instance, that Japan isn't civilized? Add to those all the countries that I mention above, that you left our, and one has a poor argument that "the rest of the civilized world" has abolished the death penalty. Between the two of us, YOU are the one who needs to check his facts (and subject matter) before weighing in.

It's truly sad that so many people who identify themselves as "Christian" are in favor of capital punishment, when the most central symbol of their faith is a representation of an innocent man being executed.

As that man said "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."

John W-

Is the Communist dictatorship in China a country we want to emulate legally or morally? How about Russia? Saudi Arabia? I don't really admire their methods of criminal justice, do you?

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Posted by: Chooselife | June 25, 2008 3:31 PM
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You make a very nice, sentimental non-point. Jesus was innocent. That, itself, was the whole point in the exercise as far as Christianity goes. It is also the single fact that made his execution an atrocity. However, he was also denied the procedural safeguards that were his right. The most obvious was the fact that Pilate declared that he could find no guilt in him; yet he succumbed to popular pressure and allowed Jesus to be executed. He was tried a second time before Herod, with the same result. Romans would not consider a judgment fair if it was contrary to the facts and the results of two trials.
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More to the point, your analogy fails to appreciate that neither Jesus nor any of his immediate followers had any particular scruples against the death penalty. Jesus, when faced with judging the woman caught in adultery, said to her accusers, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." He didn't say, "Don't do it." If one reads the part carefully, one can see that those who tried to trap Jesus in these circumstances broke, or attempted to break, many other Mosaic laws to get Jesus to condemn her. For instance, they didn't bring two witnesses to condemn her; they didn't bring the man caught in adultery, who was required to suffer the same punishment; and the witnesses against the two were supposed to take part in the stoning. And these are just for starters. In addition, as was later revealed in the gospels, it was unlawful for the locals to execute their own laws, since only the Romans could put one to death. In a more general sense, Jesus also declared that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it; and that not a single speck of the law would pass away until it was completed. Beyond these points, the New Testament says nothing about the death penalty at all. I suppose that is why the New Testament made no dent in the pro-death penalty mind-set of the day.

"I guess you have been in a cave the last 30 years while capital punishment has been around. didnt seem to stop students from killing their fellow students and teachers so many times. And not to mention all the killings from street gangs etc. So shut up already with your ignorant analagies!"
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Scot, I think you have it backwards. In most states, capital punishment(in terms of physical discipline)was abolished some 20 yrs ago. Because of this, physical violence among students have gone up while the test scores have gone down. The only avenue school faculty has to punish students now is detention, suspension and expulsion, which only serves to remove a student from the learning environment and hence the lower test scores. The kids today do not hold the same respect for their elders as they once did before capital punishment was abolished and it is truly sad because these are the so-called future leaders of this country.

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Posted by: Chooselife | June 25, 2008 4:01 PM
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I will make no comment about China and Saudi Arabia. I will allow you to make any judgment about them you want without a word of dissent.
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I beg to differ with you over the legal system in Russia. It uses the same legal system employed throughout most of Western Europe. In fact, with the adoption of the Russian Federation's constitution, persons accused of crime have many more rights than those in other countries - although they are adapted to an inquisitorial system like those that prevail in countries like France or Germany. So, if you want to disparage the Russian legal system, you had better do better than raise the specter of the former Soviet Union. It is not the same.

John W, are you in naive enough to believe that we haven't executed the innocent? Are you naive enough to believe that our current criminal justice system is anywhere near the appropriate standard for ensuring that more innocent people aren't executed in the future?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-060502willingham,0,5479872.story

We as a society have washed our hands of the whole thing, yet the stain remains. Unless the sytem is perfect, we are all Pilate. I know you'll brush this all off as "emotional", but we should all be emotional about any killing of any type, sespecially the killing of the innocent.

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Posted by: Darrin | June 25, 2008 4:11 PM
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Darrin, all but 13 States and the District of Columbia have a death penalty law. Thus, Scott didn't have that issue backwards. The real reason, if any, for the death penalty having no effect on juvenile violence in school (or otherwise) is the fact that most states, by statute, did not employ the death penalty where the accused was less than 18 years of age. In addition, the death penalty for minors was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court back in 2005. How can a penalty have a deterrent effect if it is never used?

David et al, argue legal substance if you can and try to say that the death penalty (when properly appealled) is murder if you want to defend your position. Posting a passionate Clarence Darrow speech is nice and flowery (like a certain presidential candidate) but it has nothing to do with the law or overturning the correctly applied precedent that some crimes are so heinous that they require the legal system (not any one person) to apply a punishment befitting the crime committed including the offender forfeiting his or her life for the lives they, themselves, have taken.
You can't just say it's wrong because it's wrong or "you're a murderer" if you think someone should have to pay for killing someone else's family members. States have always had the power of capital punishment, subject only to the limitations of the 8th and 14th Amendments.

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Posted by: Chooselife | June 25, 2008 4:53 PM
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I am not naïve or unaware that some procedures employed in death penalty cases can return erroneous results. I can think of several procedures off the top of my head that are not currently in use that would substantially reduce the risk of erroneous verdicts and judgments in death penalty cases. However, I also believe the answer isn't to scrap the death penalty. I believe the answer is to work at improving the accuracy of the system.

John W-

When discussing the deatth penalty, one error is an atrocity. We cannot create perfect systems, we are all far too flawed for that. We should have the humility to recognize that fact, and understand that we should not handing out the ultimate, irreversable punishment of death as a result. Just as the murderers are not fit to decide who lives and who dies, neither is a system which we cannot make perfect. We have that moral and ethical choice. We can knowingly choose to continue a system which will inevitably kill an innocent, and lose our innocence as a result, or we can step back and refuse to accept those deadly and final errors .

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Posted by: chooselife | June 25, 2008 6:13 PM
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I do not agree that "one error is an atrocity." In death penalty cases no single error is an atrocity unless it results in an erroneous conviction or, worse, an erroneous death verdict. Unlike you, I am not convinced the system is flawed beyond repair or that it cannot be made sufficiently reliable to justify the imposition of the death penalty and the execution of those duly convicted.
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The system has many built in safety features to prevent unfair guilt and death verdicts from standing. Most states that have the death penalty have rigorous standards of training for attorneys charged with defending such cases. Judges charged with the duty of presiding over capital trials work in a very different legal system filled with rigorous procedures. Reasonable doubt and "lingering doubt" function both to prevent erroneous convictions and as a ground for the jury to spare the life of a person they have convicted. On top of all of this, most states have exhaustive direct appeal procedures that can be augmented with habeas corpus petitions. Even after that fails, those sentenced to death can still seek habeas corpus remedies in both state and federal courts separately. A strong showing of innocence, and the production of new evidence to support that showing, suffices to get a new trial even years after the fact. People facing the death penalty, if they are truly innocent, have every reason to seek such remedies and there is a lot of help out there for them.
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I know for a fact that many people sitting on death row in my state are quite guilty and deserving of the death penalty. A good number of them confessed to heinous crimes and murder and showed no remorse for any of it. See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900EFDE153CF934A1575AC0A960958260&sec=&spon=
and http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/states/Cal/S012944.PDF
Regardless of the doubt I might harbor about others, I have no doubts about them and I can see no reason to spare their lives even if the burps occasionally. At the very least, if we have to limit the death penalty to those whose guilt is as convincing as theirs, then we will still be able to do justice to such people.

chooselife:

The second to last line should read, "Regardless of the doubt I might harbor about others, I have no doubts about them and I can see no reason to spare their lives even if the system burps occasionally."

Is today "proportionality day"?

Punishment not proportional to the crime?

Punitive award not proportional to the actual damages??

Have the Justices discovered the Golden Mean?

Don't count on it. Look for Scalia to knock out gun ordinances tomorrow.

John W,

Actually, Scot, does have it backwards. If you read back to the post Scot was responding too, Aaron was actually referring to Corporal punishment not Capital punishment. Then i went and did the same thing. But yes, corporal punishment was abolished in the schools a long time ago. School faculty cannot enforce physical punishment upon a student.

John W brings up many fine points and facts. Just to add, Chooselife, God gave man the ability to dish out sentences for crimes committed. If we were God and forgave people for the crimes, then all criminals would be walking free. Ultimately, God determines whether one is forgiven or saved or not. Man still has the ability and right to punish those for convicting crimes.

Now, to another point, is the ridiculous censoring by the people at the Swamp. If censoring occurs because of name calling, needless personal attacks, etc, that is one thing, but when censoring occurs merely because the person doing the censor disagrees with the point, then the Tribune might as well shut down the blog and shut down the newspaper. So, I will make my point again, with FACTS. Why do many on the Left seem so ready to apologize, excuse and enable those who commit crimes?

We have the ACLU protecting the Man-Boy Love Association, which openly tells men how they can abuse boys. And we have this Democrat from Massachusetts, who is fighting mandatory minimum sentencing for those who rape children, Here are some comments from Democrat Fagin in Massachusetts on what he would do to a child in a child rape case when defending the child rapist:
"I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of young victims. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.�

Fagan said as a defense attorney it would be his duty to do that in order to keep his clients free from a "mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions."

Minimum sentences for those who rape children is "draconian," yet the crime itself is not??

And again, why are the Swamp censors so afraid to post this? Shameful, very shameful.

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Posted by: Darrin | June 26, 2008 8:32 AM
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Actually Darrin, Aaron said "capital punishment" and not "corporal punishment." It's not my fault that Aaron thinks tykes should be put up against the wall and shot for running with scissors or being found in the hallway without a pass. I was merely responding to the truth or falsity of statements made about capital punishment.

John W.

I know what Aaron said. I was simply stating he meant to say corporal punishment. Capital punishment has never existed within our Public School systems.

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Posted by: Darrin | June 26, 2008 12:33 PM

I know what you said. I was just injecting a little levity to lighten up a brutally serious topic. Sorry.