Killing Children In The Name of Justice

by Swan | April 14, 2008 at 02:07 pm | 252 views | 3 comments

OPINION PIECE:

Disclosure: I'd like to say up front that I have moral and religious issues against the death penalty. To me, it's not our decision whether or not to kill people - that is purely the domain of one's Creator.

I accept that in America, my views will not be popular and so be it, I'm not about to change my views for popularity.

I'm not naïve, I believe that when a person is about to be harmed, they should be able to use self-defence. I even advocate the use of a fatal weapon, if it means that it will save one's life, or the life of someone else.

I also accept that our prisons are overflowing with criminals and I believe this to be a mis-management of the entire justice and imprisonment system. Both need to be revisited by the relevant authorities.

Do I have the solutions? No of course not, but then I've only been in the States for 8 years and I'm not involved with the prison or justice systems, nor do I have all the facts on each person sent to prison.

Ever since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty more than 30 years ago, justices have been finding ways to limit it.

In the intervening years, they have employed their interpretations of society's "evolving standards of decency" to remove juvenile and mentally retarded killers from death row.

Before that, they excluded kidnappers who did not kill and even some accomplices to murder. In 1977 the court also concluded that a state could not execute a man who raped an adult woman.

Honestly, do we really believe that mentally retarded people should have been on death row anyway? I do realize that our mental institutions are also overflowing, so that is another major focus of where we should be seeing change.

Do we really believe that an adult who commits rape on an adult woman, should also be on death row? If he didn't take a life, how can we take his life?

Juveniles. This is a blurry line in many cases. Legally, a child becomes an adult only at age 18, however in many cases, (mostly rape and murder,) children are tried as adults at an even younger age.

Many children are mature enough even at age 16 and 17 to be tried as adults. This is something that I do believe, because they think and behave as adults and definitely know the difference between right and wrong.

However, I do not believe they should be sent to death row if they haven't taken a life.

This coming Wednesday in Lousiana, prosecutors will attempt to convince a judge that even a 16 year old child rapist should be tried as an adult and sent to death row.

They will be demanding the expansion of capital punishment, rather than retrenchments. In other words, (and I'm going to say it like it is,) let's now murder children in the name of justice.

One has to wonder if sending a child to his death in a non-homicidal case is against the U.S. Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Even so, the law in Lousiana has stated since 1995 that if a child is raped under the age of 12, his/her rapist is punishable by death.

In 2003, Patrick Kennedy, aged 43 (pictured) was convicted of raping an 8 year old relative who was sorting Girl Scout cookies in her garage. The rape had harmed her so badly, that she needed surgery.

A loathsome, detestable crime to be sure and I believe justifiable of life imprisonment, plus a thousand years, or lifetimes, whichever comes last.

However, I don't believe the death penalty should be applied - as horrible as his crime was, Kennedy still didn't commit murder. Child rape stings sharply at people's emotions and usually produces impassioned, irascible calls for the death penalty and I do understand these knee-jerk reactions.

Proponents say society demands retribution for those who harm its most vulnerable members. But some child advocacy experts say the unintended consequences of the death penalty might be a decline in the reporting of sexual assaults by family members, or even an incentive for the rapist to kill the victim.

The thing is, I don't believe child rape can be viewed dispassionately. So in such cases, we often have two factions picketing outside courts - those who are frenzied to the point of calling for the defendant's murder on death row and those who are pro-life or friends and relatives of the alleged rapist, calling for his freedom.

Why would the jury feel any different? I believe that their views are already set on child rape, long before jury duty and regardless of questioning by both trial attorneys for jury selection, though perhaps they are prepared to be swayed by the presence of strong evidence.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Louisiana, it would put the United States in the slim minority of nations that consider the death penalty for crimes not resulting in death, the Post said.

It will also mean that Patrick Kennedy will be the first person executed for rape in the U.S., since 1964.

You can read much more on this story here.

On a personal note: As a jury member, my moral and religious views on death penalties just might be altered in a trial where a child rapist with prior convictions for repeated child rape and violence is tried, but I'm honestly not sure.

My fear is that people who cannot stop raping and hurting children, are not able to be rehabilitated - so we may just have to do what we can to eliminate their presence from this world.

But that decision would weigh heavily on my heart and on my conscience for the rest of my life with the question; 'did I make the right decision?'

Sources:

Some bylines are not provided because they didn't exist in the original stories.

Washington Post
Child Rape Tests Limits of Death Penalty
(no byline)

United Press International
High Court Weighs Death in Child Rape Case
(no byline)

Associated Content
Lousiana Supreme Court Upholds Death Penalty in Child Rape Case
by Kari Livingston

Image Sources:

Washington Post
Child Rape Tests Limits of Death Penalty

Washington Post
The Ultimate Punishment
Their source: Death Penalty Information Center

Washington Post
Louisiana Supreme Court Upholds Death Penalty in Child Rape Case
by U.S. Government

Freedom Magazine
Education - The Fatal Flaw
Published by the Church of Scientology International

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Rhonda J Mangus

at 14:42 on April 14th, 2008

good stuff:

Swan, an excellent and thought-provoking read! It clearly raises many questions on the "penalty of death", to which I am also opposed. Thanks for sharing!