5-4 bad guys again.

In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled that States could not seek the Death Penalty for child rapist. The case stems from a man who raped his eight year old step daughter and was sentenced to death in Louisana. Justice Kennedy who is known has the swing vote, but who I now think is part of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court (Read, "How could you Kennedy") said in his ruling, "The rule of evolving standards of decency ... means that resort to the [death] penalty must be reserved for the worst of crimes and limited in its instances of application."

What could be worse than raping a child?! I'd even go as far to say it might be worse than killing the child because now the child has to live with this abomination for the rest of his/her life. At least if you kill the child he/she doesn't spend the rest of his/her life reliving the rape over and over again. Kennedy also wrote in his opinion, "A state that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim." What!? O.k. now I'm confused. So the death penalty is a deternet to Murder, but not to raping a child? Of Course Kennedy's next line is possibly the most disturbing. "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child." said Justice Kennedy. Proportional punishment, if this ever happened to a child of mine I'd go Samuel L Jackson all over the bastard. (Watch A Time to Kill if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

The last two rulings of the Supreme Court are very disturbing. It seems as the liberal wing of the court has decided to submit it's judgement for the judgment of Legislatures around the country. At least there still are four members of the court that haven't let the power go to their head. Justice Alito wrote for the minority, "The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapist is grave." Alito pointed out the majority had, eliminated the death penatly in child rape cases, "no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted and no matter how heinous the perpetrator's criminal record may be."

I wonder if sometimes if we wouldn't be better off trading the death penalty now before a Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional. Maybe something like life without parole for all Murders, Rapist and Child Molesters. At least it would get them off the streets and keep them from reoffending. Of course whose to say the Court wouldn't find that against "evolving standards of decency" in a few years.