иконописсвети мина

>une 25th, 2008, the United States Supreme Court came to a controversial, 5-4 decision that struck down a Louisiana law that allows rapists to face the death penalty if their victims are children. The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case which the victim was an adult woman; and currently, five states besides Louisiana have allowed capital punishment in child rape cases-Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in his writing of the majority opinion that although the crime is devastating to both the victim and the victim’s family, he argues that “the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child.” Kennedy went on to argue that because there have been no recent executions for rape cases, and because there are only a small number of states that allow capital punishment for such cases, he believes “there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.”

While this ruling prohibits the death penalty for any crime against an individual, short of murder, capita punishment is still allowed for crimes such as terrorism, espionage, and treason, which are defined as crimes against the state.