Murder at the Supreme Court by Martin Clancy

Author:Martin Clancy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2013-01-31T05:00:00+00:00

Here the victim's fright, the sense of betrayal, and the nature of her injuries caused more prolonged physical and mental suffering than, say, a sudden killing by an unseen assassin. The attack was not just on her but on her childhood. For this reason, we should be most reluctant to rely upon the language of the plurality in Coker, which posited that, for the victim of rape, “life may not be nearly so happy as it was” but it is not beyond repair. Rape has a permanent psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical impact on the child. We cannot dismiss the years of long anguish that must be endured by the victim of child rape. It does not follow, though, that capital punishment is a proportionate penalty for the crime. The constitutional prohibition against excessive or cruel and unusual punishments mandates that the State's power to punish “be exercised within the limits of civilized standards.”30

A number of child advocacy groups had urged the Court to side with the defendant in this case, not out of any concern for child molesters but rather in the belief that allowing the death penalty could be harmful to children. The Louisiana Foundation against Sexual Assault filed a “friend of the Court” brief, noting that the perpetrators of child rape are often relatives or individuals known to the victim. Allowing the death penalty for the molester, someone the child may know or even love, might make the victim less likely to come forward and report the abuse.

Judy Benitez, the Foundation's executive director, wrote that making child rape punishable by death might also help persuade the rapist to murder his victim, having nothing more to lose if caught.31

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