The victim was under the age of twelve, and the sex was brutal, not consensual. I do not know what the Stalinist revisionists of reality and history hope to accomplish at the Supreme Court defending a scumbag rapist who needs to be put out of his misery. This little girl who was raped needs to be comforted knowing that the dog rapist that bit her in the vagina has been put out of its misery and daily prison torment. She needs closure; she needs this death sentence resolution so that her life can go on without the past psychologically tormenting her for the rest of her life. When people are 85 years old and pass away in the night, people say that it was time for your relative and loved one to pass away. When you die of old age, God has the right to put you to sleep is what they are saying. Aggravated assault: The murderous rapist could have put the victim to sleep. Does God gave a shit about this rapist? No. [I just asked.] Do the Christians and the Jews want to give him a life sentence so that they can convert him while he is in prison and turn him into a born again nutcase for the lord?
¶
Take back the day! Brad Pitt lawyer argues a stupid case before the Supreme Court: The glory to God of it; the honor given to God of it.
¶
A self-serving, self promoting, obstructing atheist prick lawyer and an army of brownshirt Sanford boot polishers to carry his legal briefcase——good grief, Charley Brown.
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.................
{It was not disputed that the victim was brutally raped. On the morning of March 2, 1998, the victim was transported by ambulance to Children’s Hospital where she was examined in the emergency room. The victim’s predominate injury
was vaginal with profuse bleeding. Her entire perineum was torn and her rectum protruded into her vagina. Dr. Scott Benton of Children’s Hospital testified as an
expert in pediatric forensic medicine that the victim’s injuries were the most serious he had seen, within his four years of practice, that resulted from a sexual assault.}

this is an interesting case, certainly speaks to the scope of the death penalty. it is unfortunate that the article did not offer a more "balanced" perspective. how strange that Fisher feels such an urgent need to protect the rapist, without so much a mere mention of the extreme injuries to the child. not one mention here. and what a sniveling rebuttal, that "consensual" sex between a 12 year old and 18 year old is a capital offense in louisiana. my, my, my.... what a "backward state!" ...is this the prof's" best level of reasoned argument?!?

I used to be OK with capital punishment...not really an advocate, but wasn't advocating its abolition. I have turned to an anti-death penalty stance. The case that turned my mind was the Duke lacrosse debacle.
Long story short, a DA and police force attempted to frame three white students for an accused rape that the medical evidence showed did not occur. They were egged on by Durham residents, Duke community members and a group of hateful professors and cowardly administrators, most of whom still refuse to admit their rush to judgment was factually incorrect, let alone morally wrong.
I was incredulous that a college town, a supposedly enlightened community including college professors, would line up to crucify innocent men based on their color and social standing. Three men were indicted despite zero physical evidence of a rape, an unreliable witness with a rapidly-changing story, zero corroboration and two solid alibis.
Prosecutorial misconduct and community harassment ruled the day. In other words, a fraud on the order of the Dreyfus Affair.
And almost no one could stop it. Then DA Mike Nifong was one vote from escaping even going before an ethics board. (He was eventually disbarred, although he can get his license back in 2012).
It's not so much that white males were targeted and it could happen to me. It's more that if the "majority profile" of white males, with the best lawyers money could buy (for which their parents mortgaged their houses), came so close to being sent up the river, if they couldn't get a fair shot in that environment, no one can get a fair shot in this country. It really made me think about what I've heard about other high-profile cases around the US. Do I think cases that were far less documented than Duke lacrosse were on the up and up? Not for a second.
The Duke men were transparently innocent, but maybe these other cases were about low-life perps. Even so, the chance that the guilty were framed and people were railroaded, even up to a higher charge. But even lowlifes have a right to full advocacy and an appropriate punishment. I can't abide putting people to death with a justice system as corrupt as American lawyers have made it.

All these retarded arguments : God this and God that , Cain and Abel blah blah blah , he should suffer for what he has done to this girl.... These arguments are all stupid. I tried really hard to think of something more nuanced to call them but this is exactly what they are - STUPID
You people need to write less and read more - the first hallmark of stupid. (Making people suffer is NOT the aim of the penal system. Our laws are NOT passed with revenge in mind, this isn't Sharia)
You need to react less and think more - the ultimate hallmark of stupid. I love how some retarded sophomore up there thinks that he has "the proper punishment " for a rapist. "There is no excuse , no defence" Really? DO you think we just pluck mandatory minimums and recommended sentences out of thin air? DO you think that little girls parents aren't at least happy their daughter's alive - battered and bruised that she may be.
YES Rape is a lesser crime than murder. Rape is a subjugation of the victim and a horrifying trauma and does fill the victims life with trauma for some time - BUT IT LEAVES YOU WITH LIFE.

YES Rape is a lesser crime than murder. Rape is a subjugation of the victim and a horrifying trauma and does fill the victims life with trauma for some time - BUT IT LEAVES YOU WITH LIFE.
Basically you have no idea what you are talking about. This poor little girl has been damaged for life, she is serving a life sentence for what this sick bastard has done to her. And as far as the goals of our legal system, do you hope to rehabilitate this man? Do you know that child rapists have some of the worst recividism rate of any criminals. Child molesters can have hundreds of victims over their lifetime, and in fact I am willing to venture a guess in stating that this probably is not his only offense. Child molesters generally can not be rehabilitated. If he doesn't die this little girl will have to live with the fear that he will someday be released, and frankly I'm not interested in risking other people's children by letting him on the loose. These are all things you might know if you actually had some life experience or had read anything about the topic. You have no right to judge how hard this girl's life is going to be, or what trauma she will have because you clearly don't know what you are talking about.

Also, don't forget that executing criminals for rape could make things worse for the victims. Most victims of child rape are raped by family members, and knowing that reporting the crime would lead to the death of a family member would surely reduce the number of child rapes reported to authorities. Death sentences for rape would also make it more likely that criminals would rape AND kill their victims.
This is simply untrue. First of all, child victims almost never self-report their injuries. In this case the only reason it was discovered was because she was so severely injured. Other adults in the child's life are not going to be less likely to report because of the death penalty. An individual's moral code to protect a child doesn't suddenly go away if the punishment is death. Anyone with half a sense of decency is going to protect the child first. Since this is the first rape offense to get a death sentence in a long time in Louisiana I can only assume that there were serious mitigating factors that caused the jury to make that choice. Perhaps the brutality or the testimony of the other girl helped sway them in that direction, but the death penalty does not seem to be applied willy nilly here. And the damages are truly life-long damages, rape victims, especially children can and do suffer from PTSD worse then most of the people coming home from Iraq. I cannot emphasize enough how difficult this type of crime is to recover from.

Before everyone starts preaching about the kids - why don't you read the amicus brief filed by the National Association of Social Workers on behalf of the PETITIONER.

The fact that that rape and the death penalty has involved racist biases doesn't change my view on the matter in the least. To me that simply means that we ought to be less racist. And to those of you and the supreme court that think that Murder is worse in all circumstances, I can say that there are some fates worse then death, and that research since the Coker decision has show how extraordinarily difficult it is for Child molestation victims to lead normal healthy lives by any means. Suicide is common, as are multiple other mental issues.. for life. Many of these victims never recover. Additionally, at least with some murders i.e. a wife who kills her husband for cheating on her, you can argue that it is "a crime of passion." There is no such rational for children rape victims, they are completely innocent.

I think we can all agree that the top concern should be the kids. Punishing offenders, and notions of justice come second to our top concern - the welfare of abused kids, and decreasing the possibility that other kids will be abused.
But before you go on 'preaching about the kids' and throwing around conditions like PTSD, please read the National Social Workers amicus brief. You can't link to a website in your post, but all you have to do is google it. The experts (who know a lot more about the welfare of the kids than you or I), have declared that the death penalty is NOT the answer to this problem!

Obviously I was not saying that murder was ok. I was stating that on the scale of who is more likely to re-offend and hurt someone else, the child rapist over the murdering housewife is far more likely and therefore a bigger threat to society.My point was that the intent to rape an innocent child is more evil then the intent to kill your husband for cheating on you. Neither is good, but the intent in the case of the child is worse.
I don't care what social workers think, I've had a lot of experience with social workers, and they are often incompetant, bias, and fail to protect children. Most of the people that I know who have had experience with social workers (and that's a lot of people) can tell you that there are a lot of abused children out there who are not being protected. I read the amicus brief and I can tell you that there is a lot of nonsense in there.
For example:
Not only will this increased exposure hinder child victims’ healing proc- ess, the imposition of a death sentence also will add to the guilt that child victims sometimes feel and may preclude the possibility of a future therapeutic
meeting between the victim and his or her abuser.
There is nothing therapeutic about this, and by telling victim that they should "forgive" their abuser just confuses them and puts more responsibility on their shoulders. Perhaps we should tell these victims the truth:
" this horrible thing that was done to you is not you fault, and it was evil, and the person who did it was evil, but we are going to keep you safe now, and we are so sorry for failing to do that in the first place."

Furthermore, unless the individual is innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt the person could get a reduced sentence and avoid punishing the victim further by taking a plea bargain. As far as people failing to report it, I don't think that the death penalty is going to increase that. As I said before, this crime was only reported because of the serious damages, not the because the victim came forward. Child victims almost never self-report, and any adult who fails to report is an accomplice as far as I'm concerned. Killing their victims will make it much more likely that they will be caught, because a child who is sexually abused is unlikely to come forward, but if they disappear there will be an investigation. Most child molesters are highly manipulative people who are aware of the laws and how to train their victims to never tell.
If you don't want to give them the death penalty, then fine. But at bare minimum they should never be released into society, and Partick Kennedy should get life without the possibility of ever being paroled. He should not be released on good behavior, or any other such nonsense 20 years later. The stress that this poses for the victim who will live in constant fear for everyday that he is on the streets, combined with the risk that we are taking with other people's children should at the bare minimum mean that he serves life behind bars. Many of these people don't, and they re-offend, again, and again, and again.
Considering that you have no idea who I am or what my background is I would suggest that you shouldn't tell me what I know. I happen to have a lot of personal experience with this issue, and so I know what I am talking about.
And you really really should check your rhetoric.
"But before you go on 'preaching about the kids' and throwing around conditions like PTSD, please read the National Social Workers amicus brief."
Despite the sentence above this, you still sound like you are disregarding the victims. You have absolutely no idea what they go through, so until you do you should probably not use that kind of language.