Court Takes Death-Penalty Case Involving Rape of Young Girl - WSJ.com

Court Takes Death-Penalty Case Involving Rape of Young Girl - WSJ.com

Court Takes Death-Penalty CaseInvolving Rape of Young Girl

By MARK H. ANDERSON January 4, 2008 3:24 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court Friday added another dramatic death-penalty case to its docket, agreeing to decide whether a Louisiana man can be put to death for raping his young daughter.

The case joins an appeal set for argument Monday where the Supreme Court will decide whether lethal-injection procedures used in many criminal executions violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The lethal injection appeal, in Baze v. Rees, spurred what has become a de facto nationwide halt on death penalty executions until the appeal is decided.

In contrast, the Louisiana rape case for now may affect the fate of just one man -- Patrick Kennedy. His attorneys say he is the only person set to be put to death for rape in the last 40 years.

Nevertheless, the appeal gives the Supreme Court the chance to revisit whether the death penalty can be used for crimes that don't involve someone's death. In recent years, five states have enacted laws allowing the death penalty for child rape and nine additional states and the federal government have seldom-used laws that allow death penalty convictions in certain instances that don't involve murder.

Mr. Kennedy, who claimed his daughter was raped by two teenagers, was convicted of raping his daughter in March 1998 and severely injuring her. The aggravated rape conviction, combined with the 8-year-old age of the victim, resulted in a death penalty sentence under Louisiana's rape laws. On appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the conviction despite a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejected the death penalty in the rape of a 16-year-old.

Attorneys for Mr. Kennedy, in a Supreme Court brief, said the death penalty conviction was "anti-precedential" and should be overturned by the high court. "It flouts the overwhelming national consensus that capital punishment is an inappropriate penalty for any kind of rape," his attorneys said. "Forty-five states ban such punishment."

Louisiana said the death conviction should be allowed to stand because "the death penalty is not excessive punishment for the rape of a child." The state added that its law "genuinely narrows the class of death eligible rapists to those who rape young children under twelve and then at the sentencing phase allows for the consideration of mitigating circumstances."
The case is Kennedy v. Louisiana. Arguments will be heard in the spring.

The lethal injection case will be the first matter the court considers when it sits for the first time in 2008. The appeal was brought by Kentucky death row inmates who argue the procedures used to administer lethal injection violate the U.S. Constitution.

The Kentucky cases involve inmates Ralph Baze, convicted and sentenced to death for the 1992 killings of a county sheriff and his deputy, and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., convicted of the 1990 killings of the owners of a Lexington, Ky., dry-cleaning business and their small child.

The lethal injection procedures at issue involve a three-part drug injection that has been widely used since the 1980s by states that execute criminals. The drugs first paralyze and then stop a person's heart from beating.

Inmates in several states have been fighting lethal injection procedures in court cases, leading to procedure reviews and moratoriums across the country. The Supreme Court has halted several executions pending the outcome of the pending lethal injection appeal. A ruling is expected by July 2008.