Supreme Court rejects death penalty for raping children

The Court has released the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), on whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits states from imposing the death penalty for child rape, and, if not, whether Louisiana's statute fails to narrow the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty. The Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty for the crime of raping a child, when the victim does not die and death was not intended. The vote was 5 - 4 and the decision was written by Justice Kennedy. Dissenting were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia. SCOTUSblog has posted the decision online. You can read the New York Times article online. Also here is the AP article about today's ruling.

Court rejects death penalty for raping children
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago

The Supreme Court has struck down a Louisiana law that allows the execution of people convicted of a raping a child.

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

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday also cut the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million.

The court ruled that victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history may collect punitive damages from Exxon Mobil Corp., but not as much as a federal appeals court determined.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses, about $500 million compensation.

Exxon asked the high court to reject the punitive damages judgment, saying it already has spent $3.4 billion in response to the accident that fouled 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline.

A jury decided Exxon should pay $5 billion in punitive damages. A federal appeals court cut that verdict in half.