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ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

Sophie11....I thought that's what I just wrote.....if there were a death penalty for child rape, a child rapist would more likely kill the victim to insure the child could not be a witness..

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ORIGINAL: Sophie11

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ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

One thing here....as much as child rapists are evil, A child rapist facing a death penalty would be more likely to kill the child to insure no witnesses. A 8x8 foot concrete cell, aluminum toilet, 2 meals of something horrible like lima beans and poached herring and no contact with a human ever would be good enough punishment for me.

And what makes you think that someone so abhorrent who would rape a child to begin with wouldn't kill a child to stay out of jail either?

If some pitiful excuse for a human being wants to rape a child, I hardly think they are worrying about the consequences IF they are caught, they are more than likely only worrying about NOT getting caught.

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ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

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ORIGINAL: StephK
You need to read what this monster did to his 8 year old stepdaughter and then tried to blame two neighborhood kids. This was a heinous crime. This girl will be scarred for life.

www.lasc.org/opinions/2007/05KA1981.opn.pdf

Yes. And he will be in jail for life, exactly where he should be.

The fact that you are a monster doesn't mean you should die. In this country, we punish people for what they do; not who they are. In order to have a proportionate punishment, we can only punish crimes that result in death with the death penalty.

That doesn't mean this guy won't be killed in prison in the next year or two, if that's any consolation...

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ORIGINAL: Sophie11

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ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

Sophie11....I thought that's what I just wrote.....if there were a death penalty for child rape, a child rapist would more likely kill the victim to insure the child could not be a witness..

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ORIGINAL: Sophie11

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ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

One thing here....as much as child rapists are evil, A child rapist facing a death penalty would be more likely to kill the child to insure no witnesses. A 8x8 foot concrete cell, aluminum toilet, 2 meals of something horrible like lima beans and poached herring and no contact with a human ever would be good enough punishment for me.

And what makes you think that someone so abhorrent who would rape a child to begin with wouldn't kill a child to stay out of jail either?

If some pitiful excuse for a human being wants to rape a child, I hardly think they are worrying about the consequences IF they are caught, they are more than likely only worrying about NOT getting caught.

No, we obviously have a misunderstanding somewhere. Are you saying you are against the death penalty for child rapists because you fear the rapist would be more likely to kill the child if he faces the death penalty than he would by facing prison time?

If that is your stance, I am saying I disagree. Anyone who has it in them to kill a child to get out of being punished for their crime would kill the child no matter what the punishment is, prison time or death.

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ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

I think in some cases yes, some no. Not being non committal here, but criminals kill witnesses quite often.

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ORIGINAL: Sophie11

quote:

ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

Sophie11....I thought that's what I just wrote.....if there were a death penalty for child rape, a child rapist would more likely kill the victim to insure the child could not be a witness..

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sophie11

quote:

ORIGINAL: ElmerFishpaw

One thing here....as much as child rapists are evil, A child rapist facing a death penalty would be more likely to kill the child to insure no witnesses. A 8x8 foot concrete cell, aluminum toilet, 2 meals of something horrible like lima beans and poached herring and no contact with a human ever would be good enough punishment for me.

And what makes you think that someone so abhorrent who would rape a child to begin with wouldn't kill a child to stay out of jail either?

If some pitiful excuse for a human being wants to rape a child, I hardly think they are worrying about the consequences IF they are caught, they are more than likely only worrying about NOT getting caught.

No, we obviously have a misunderstanding somewhere. Are you saying you are against the death penalty for child rapists because you fear the rapist would be more likely to kill the child if he faces the death penalty than he would by facing prison time?

If that is your stance, I am saying I disagree. Anyone who has it in them to kill a child to get out of being punished for their crime would kill the child no matter what the punishment is, prison time or death.

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ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

quote:

ORIGINAL: StephK
You need to read what this monster did to his 8 year old stepdaughter and then tried to blame two neighborhood kids. This was a heinous crime. This girl will be scarred for life.

www.lasc.org/opinions/2007/05KA1981.opn.pdf

Yes. And he will be in jail for life, exactly where he should be.

The fact that you are a monster doesn't mean you should die. In this country, we punish people for what they do; not who they are. In order to have a proportionate punishment, we can only punish crimes that result in death with the death penalty.

That doesn't mean this guy won't be killed in prison in the next year or two, if that's any consolation...

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ORIGINAL: WesP
One obvious problem with your contention is that the first offense does not usually result in your touted life without parole. How many offenses should occur to result in that or a death penalty? How do you value a child's well-being? You are obviously placing a specific value on it. What is that value?

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ORIGINAL: StephK
He ripped her vagina to shreds, coached her to lie, blamed a couple of innocent kids and tried to cover up his work. He wasn't planning on getting caught and probably didn't think he would injure her that badly for her to require surgery so he could do it again. In this day and time, life really doesn't mean life.

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A confessed murderer, where there were also two living witnesses who pretended they were dead, was tried and convicted 4 times is out free. He originally received the death penalty, the USSC decided that the death penalty was inhumane so he was taken off of death row and put on life. He was subsequently retried and convicted for murder, received the death penalty again and then a bleeding heart found a way to get that conviction overturned and he received another trial. They moved the trial to another part of the state, stacked the jury and he was given a time served sentence. This man nearly decapitated his victim in an armed robbery. The victim was someone he knew. He wasn't on drugs, he was just greedy and thought he could rob the bank he worked at as a janitor. Same state, same prison this monster is in. The same attorney working through the death penalty cases getting known and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt murderers OFF, not just off of death row. He's not denying their guilt just finding archaic loopholes to free these people, most of whom raped and killed their young victims. I'm talking 4 and 6 year olds.

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ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

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ORIGINAL: WesP
One obvious problem with your contention is that the first offense does not usually result in your touted life without parole. How many offenses should occur to result in that or a death penalty? How do you value a child's well-being? You are obviously placing a specific value on it. What is that value?

I think that if it's a particularly brutal crime, one offense should be enough. Most rapists are likely to repeat their crimes, and if the crime is so awful that it compares to other crimes that we hand out lengthy sentences for, life without parole or life in prison with parole after 30-40 years is probably necessary.

Simply stated, rape is a crime that does not kill. Therefore, the punishment should also involve something that does not kill. If we put child rapists away for a long time or for the rest of their lives, we can ensure that there won't be a second offense.

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ORIGINAL: WesP

So the punishment should equal the crime? OK. Should we develop machines that will automatically sodomize the criminals periodically? Kill = kill. Sodomize = sodomize. Etc. Right?

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perhaps for the rest of his life

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ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

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ORIGINAL: WesP

So the punishment should equal the crime? OK. Should we develop machines that will automatically sodomize the criminals periodically? Kill = kill. Sodomize = sodomize. Etc. Right?

The punishment should be proportional to the crime. Since this guy ruined someone else's life, we're going to ruin his. Thus, we have a machine that does ruin his life (prison). We put him in it for a very long time- perhaps for the rest of his life.

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ORIGINAL: rowsdower

I think the term they used to oppose this was that it was cruel and unusual punishment. This is utterly laughable. That's saying that raping a child is NOT cruel and unusual against the child. But honestly, I'm not surprised by this or the fact that the Mass. Lawmaker all but indicted children who are raped as being the real criminals.

This is iron clad evidence that we have some mentally ill people running this country; people who call evil good and good evil, just like the bible says -- totally divorced from reality, reason and just plain human decency. And, while I'd rather not bring politics into this, bottom line is the people attacking the innocent and pouring compassion out on the murderers and rapists are LIBERALS.[:(]

I see it everyday: I live in a city where a totally liberal city council embraces illegal gang members who murder Americans and offers them sanctuary, while spitting in the face of law abiding citizens who call for simple enforcement of the law to protect them. [:@][:@][:@][:@]

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ORIGINAL: Stephanos
Problem is most prisons give the criminals, even hard core ones, luxuries that many low income honest citizens in the US dont have! Three full meals a day. TV in their rooms. Free health care.

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ORIGINAL: everythingat

Just a quick point...prison is no walk in the park for child molesters/rapists. They are more likely to be brutalized by the other inmates, that's one of the few things prison inmates will not tolerate.

My personal opinion...I don't think a death penalty is necessary. I think it's kind of a stretch to justify a death penalty when there was no murder involved in the crime. (Please don't reply with extreme examples of crimes without murder to prove your point...that also is not necessary.)

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ORIGINAL: StephK

Honestly isn't relying on prison justice more cruel and inhumane than living on death row going through the appeals process? Death row inmates are at least protected from being brutalized and tortured for years by the hands of other convicted felons.

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ORIGINAL: blessedinnyc

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ORIGINAL: StephK

Honestly isn't relying on prison justice more cruel and inhumane than living on death row going through the appeals process? Death row inmates are at least protected from being brutalized and tortured for years by the hands of other convicted felons.

Often, these guys are taken out of the general population along with informants, gang members, and others who need to get out for their own safety.

I also don't think they're afforded the benefits that many general population prisoners are afforded.

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ORIGINAL: StephK

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ORIGINAL: everythingat

Just a quick point...prison is no walk in the park for child molesters/rapists. They are more likely to be brutalized by the other inmates, that's one of the few things prison inmates will not tolerate.

My personal opinion...I don't think a death penalty is necessary. I think it's kind of a stretch to justify a death penalty when there was no murder involved in the crime. (Please don't reply with extreme examples of crimes without murder to prove your point...that also is not necessary.)

It isn't the responsibility of the prisoners to mete out justice though. Prison rape shouldn't be tolerated at all either.

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ORIGINAL: SonInMe1

If we let revenge control us then we will have a terrible example to live up to. If one crime is deserving death, eventually more will be deserving of death.

A person commits a terrible crime...so we kill them. If a terrible crime deserves death then why not torture them too? Hang them slowly. Pour gas on them and burn them. Burn them on a stake.

Hang them on a cross.

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ORIGINAL: WesP

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ORIGINAL: SteveSund

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ORIGINAL: WesP
If society could stomach a bit of punishment, the deterrent would have meaning.

The death penalty doesn't deter murderers, why would it make a difference in the case of child rapists?

I will have to read the decision, but I am leaning towards agreeing with the dissent. I am anti-death penalty, but this issue is better left up to the states to decide.

I stand by my statement. If the punishments were actually administered, they would be a deterrent. If you threaten your child but never deliver the spanking, they will learn to ignore you. Same principle applies here. There are basic fundamentals to human nature, and it starts with a child.

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Jindal upset by Supreme Court ruling

“The opinion reflects a clear abuse of judicial authority, trampling the constitutional authority of states to act through the legislative process. The Court found, ‘there is a distinction between intentional first degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other. The latter crimes may be devastating in their harm, as here, but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, they cannot be compared to murder in their severity and irrevocability.’

“The Supreme Court is dead wrong.

“It is fundamentally improper for the Supreme Court to base an important decision like this on its ‘independent judgment’ about a perceived ‘national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.’ The opinion reads more like an out-of-control legislative debate than a constitutional analysis.

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ORIGINAL: StephK

It's not about deterrents but justice for the crime committed. There's also a bigger issue over the fact that once again the USSC overstepped their constitutional boundaries.

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Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.