SCOTUS Strikes Down Death Penalty for Pedophiles

That had to be an unpleasant ruling to make.

From the AP:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child.

In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. ...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child.

In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. ...

The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman.

Forty-five states ban the death penalty for any kind of rape, and the other five states allow it for child rapists. Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas allow executions in such cases if the defendant had previously been convicted of raping a child.

The court struggled over how to apply standards laid out in decisions barring executions for the mentally retarded and people younger than 18 when they committed murder. In those cases, the court cited trends in the states away from capital punishment.

On a purely emotional level I'm supportive of the death penalty for child molesters and the death penalty as a whole in theory. I've mentioned before given the fact that we have executed innocent people, that those that can afford better lawyers tend avoid the death penalty more often then those who can't, and that the death penalty is costlier than life in prison I'm for scrapping it altogether. And given national trends and recent SCOTUS rulings on this issue its only a matter of time before that happens.

New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty

Looks like NJ Dems were able to push it through using a fiscal responsibility argument.

From the WaPo:

NEW YORK, Dec. 13 -- New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to abolish the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976. Opponents of capital punishment hope the state's action may prompt a rethinking of the moral and practical implications of the practice in other states.

New Jersey's Democratic-controlled General Assembly voted 44 to 36 on Thursday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. The action followed a similar vote by the state Senate on Monday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat and a death penalty opponent, has said he will sign the legislation.
...

The U.S. Supreme Court has effectively declared a moratorium on executions since it decided to take up in this term the question of whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In recent decisions, the high court has narrowed the use of capital punishment, ruling that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded or those who committed crimes as juveniles.

Public opinion across the United States still remains solidly in favor of capital punishment, with 62 percent supporting the death penalty for murderers and 32 percent opposed, according to January polling figures from the Pew Research Center in Washington. And in New Jersey, the most recent poll this week, released by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, showed that New Jersey residents oppose abolishing the death penalty 53 percent to 39 percent.

Where there is a discernable shift underway -- and what has partly driven the repeal in New Jersey -- is when residents are offered an alternative; the death penalty, or life in prison without parole. Given the choice, New Jersey residents backed life without parole over the death penalty, 52 percent to 39 percent.
...

In the end, the most compelling case for New Jersey lawmakers was the economic one. Keeping inmates on death row costs the state $72,602 per year for each prisoner, according to the commission. Inmates kept in the general population cost $40,121 per year each to house. The corrections department estimates that repeal could save the state as much as $1.3 million per inmate over his lifetime -- and that figure does not include the millions spent by public defenders on inmates' appeals

In theory I support the death penalty. I'm of the opinion that anyone that commits particularly heinous acts of murder, kills multiple people, kills children, or kills police officers should be put to death. In fact after a few drinks I'd probably add serial rapists and child molesters to the list. Having said that I also think its important to look at the history of the death penalty and consider the facts that its application presents us. We've executed innocent people, those that can afford better lawyers normally manage to avoid it, and its costlier than life in prison. Given the choice of supporting an irrevocable penalty that is unfair, imperfect, and financially imprudent or abolishing the penalty altogether I'm for scrapping it.

I said that so you'd understand exactly what I meant when I said the following:

Way to go New Jersey.

Texas Governor Commutes Death Sentence

Well this was unexpected...

From the AP:

Texas governor spares getaway driver

Gov. Rick Perry, longtime head of the nation's busiest death penalty state, spared an inmate Thursday hours before he was to have been executed for being a killer's getaway driver.

Perry issued the commutation order on a parole board's rare recommendation about seven hours before Kenneth Foster was to have been put to death — the narrowest gap by which he has halted an execution in his more than eight years in office.

Thursday's vote marked only the second time since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982 that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles endorsed stopping an execution with so little time remaining. And in that 2004 case, Perry rejected the board's recommendation and the prisoner, who had been diagnosed as mentally ill, was executed.

This time, Perry agreed with the board's recommendation that Foster be saved from lethal injection.

Foster, 30, learned of Thursday's board vote during a morning visit with his father. A warden told him of the governor's commutation about an hour later.

"The first thing I did was drop to my knees and say a little prayer," he said as he was being taken from the Huntsville prison unit where executions are carried out for a return trip to the prison that houses death row. "I owe a lot of people."

Death penalty opponents had launched a public-relations campaign to save Foster because they objected to Texas's so-called law of parties, a unique statute in which each participant of a capital crime is held equally responsible. In any other state, the person who actually killed another person might be eligible for execution, but the driver or other participants might not be. more

I think Gov. Perry did the right thing here. The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for those that commit the most heinous of crimes and to me this clearly doesn't meet that standard. The fact that Foster had exhausted his appeals and the sentence had to be commuted points to exactly how broken Texas' death penalty laws are. Additionally with only 2% of murderers getting the death penalty in Texas (according to a San Antonio Express News article from last week that I can't find) it seems that either the laws are applied inconsistently or that one gets the best justice one can afford.

I can understand a state wanting to be tough on crime but ultimately its more important to be fair. Somehow somewhere the powers that be in The Lone Star State seem to have forgotten that fact. Its good that Gov. Perry remembered. Even if it was at the last minute.