As you (should) already know, I am vehemently opposed to any form of capital punishment. I know of no crime that anyone can commit that gives the state the right to murder them in retribution. It is not the state imposing a punishment, but rather the state becoming an instrument of vengeance. The fact that said vengeance is meted out much more often to minorities for similar or lesser crimes than it is to Caucasians simply reinforces my opposition to it. And then there's the preponderance of exonerations as new evidence becomes available, crime labs are found to be highly negligent, or legal frameworks are found to be biased towards the prosecution and/or highly inadequate for the defense.

Besides - death is easy. The constant debate is over whether our methods of disposing of criminals is "humane" (whatever that's supposed to mean). If we're faced with a truly heinous crime, wouldn't locking that person in a cell 23 hours a day for the rest of their miserable lives be a more torturous punishment than simply euthanizing them?

Five states want to reinstate the death penalty for rape in cases where the victim is a minor under the age of 13. Now, for vengeance-minded people, I'm sure this sounds like a grand old idea. However, the margin for error just gets thinner and thinner.

The flagship case in this push does nothing more than underscore what a terrible idea this is.

Patrick Kennedy was convicted of brutally raping his 8-year old stepdaughter and sentenced to death. Now, the Supreme Court found in 1977 that the death penalty for rape was unconstitutional, but the wording of the decision can be read to refer specifically to an adult victim, which led the Louisiana Supreme Court to rule that Kennedy's sentence didn't violate the SCOTUS decision.

Kennedy's case is fraught with problems. He initially called 911 to report the rape, and the tape has him asking for an ambulance because his stepdaughter had been raped by two boys, and then telling the operator that he was going to find them and kill them - a predictable reaction from someone who's just found his stepdaughter raped. The stepdaughter's report backed that up, that two boys had dragged her into the alley and raped her. In the course of the investigation, however, police began to focus on Kennedy.

He was tried and convicted, not because of any physical evidence that he'd committed the crime - there was none that implicated him - but because his stepdaughter changed her testimony and implicated him. She's on tape at one point telling the forensic psychologists that the police wanted her to change her story. She was told, as was her mother, that she would be placed in foster care if Kennedy was not convicted, because the state would not let her live with him, even if they couldn't prove his guilt.

So, an eight-year-old was told that she was going to be taken from her parents, unless she said what the police wanted to hear. Eight-year-olds do not have even the slightest concept of imprisonment and are easily impressionable. Tell them what you want them to say and conjure up the specter of being snatched from their mother, and they'll tell you what you want to hear, and make up as many convincing details as you need.

So, the obvious oversights in the case notwithstanding, Victims Right's and Rape Prevention groups have come out against the death penalty for rape cases. Why? Because it leaves more rapes unsolved and more rapists in close proximity to their victims.

Rape is a highly underreported crime. The shame and fear and public humiliation involved leads many victims to stay silent. Child rapists tend to be related to their victims, which creates another problem: family members, while they'd be OK with seeing someone rot in prison for their crime, might not be so keen on having them executed for it. So it goes unreported. And then there's the real problem. Plea deals in these cases involve life in prison without parole. Someone falsely accused of raping a child has two alternatives: plead guilty and get life in prison, or go to trial for their very lives. Kennedy's case shows what a poor proposition that is. No physical evidence? Changing statements from the key witness? Possible witness tampering? Too bad. Get ready for the death juice!

Between 1972 and 1977, there were 63 rape convictions in Georgia, and juries returned death penalties in only 6 (one was set aside by Georgia's Supreme Court) - juries handed down death penalties in less than 10% of cases, making the punishment highly arbitrary (and therefore unusual). People executed for rape are overwhelmingly black, and no white man has ever been executed in America for raping a black woman. So, it's not just arbitrary, it's racially biased when it is handed down (which isn't surprising, because the same can be said for death sentences for murder).

Rape is also very hard to prove, but when it is "proven," the chances of convicting the innocent is high, and higher still when the victim is a child.

So, five states are trying their hardest to execute the innocent, claiming that they're protecting the rest of us. I'm not sure how sacrificing one innocent person for the nebulous and unproven claim of protection for the rest of society is Justice. It's not even peace of mind - it's just a momentary satisfaction of blood lust. Is that what we are?

-pb