main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Death Penalty for Child Molestors?

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by JediSmuggler, Mar 30, 2006.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    I'd say they're protecting some of the values that makes America what it is. I don't think the death penalty should be treated as lightly as this decision would allow it to be. Because then, the case can be made to expand it to particularly brutal rapes of adults, then rape as a whole or molestation versus rape specifically and then for brutal crimes of a nonsexual nature. It opens doors to the death penalty that I would like to keep closed.
     
  2. dizfactor

    dizfactor Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2002
    It's the judiciary's job to uphold the basic rights of all people, to serve as a check on the power of the majority of voters, and to keep the legislature and the executive in line with due process. These things are fundamental to your freedom and mine.

    Really? Why is it that Louisiana has four times the violent crime rate of Vermont? Why is Vermont ranked as the most educated state while Louisiana is #45 out of 50? Why is it that Vermont has about 40% higher median household income even though it only has 5% higher per capita income? Average longevity is 4 years higher in VT than LA., which may be related to Louisiana ranking #8 in the nation in obesity vs Vermont at #49. The teen birth rate in Louisiana is 3 times higher than Vermont.

    Whatever it is those lawless liberal havens are doing, maybe it would be a good idea for you to take notes.
     
  3. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    I really have only one problem with the Supreme Court's trending towards abolishing capital punishment through its rulings.

    It's quite clear that the Constitution expressly permits capital punishment. Even if you consider it "cruel and unusual punishment" (which it's clear it wasn't considered when the 8th Amendment was ratified), the 14th Amendment expressly allows it. Because the 14th is more recent than the 8th, the 14th is the controlling amendment on the subject (just like the 21st Amendment supersedes the 18th because it is more recent). As the 14th Amendment says:
    That is about as plain English as you can get. The State is allowed to deprive someone of life if they follow due process of law.

    If the Supreme Court winds up ruling that capital punishment is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment, then they will have directly contradicted and ignored the plain text of the Constitution as it is currently amended, and that is unacceptable to me, no matter what the end goal is. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, and the courts should not be able to ignore the Constitution just because they want a specific outcome.

    I have no problem with ending capital punishment. After all, the Constitution does not require that it be used. It only says that it may be used (if due process is followed). My problem comes with ending capital punishment by ignoring the plain text of the Constitution.

    Kimball Kinnison
     
  4. AaylaSecurOWNED

    AaylaSecurOWNED Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    May 19, 2005
    Now, this is just an off-the-cuff guess, but I think it might be the Eighth Amendment.
     
  5. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    dizfactor, I'm unsure if you've missed that this area has been controlled by the social welfare state for decades, with Democrats basically being in control of Louisiana for over a century. Also, the highest crime and uneducated areas you refer to are not only the most codependent on government, but also are comprised of black minority communities ridden with crime, ignorance, illegitimacy, and so on ---- a demographic that Vermont does not have. One simply has to look at the difference between the Iowa flooding and New Orleans. Either way, this is a non sequitur in relation to the issue of child molestation, which Vermont is a happy haven for pedophiles.

    But, you can continue excusing sympathy for the rights of child rapists if you wish, nevermind the child who a life sentence handed to them by the perpetrator.

    Only in this perverted generation would we see such sympathy for such individuals.

     
  6. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    How is opposing the death penalty in these cases symapthy, if the issue is with the penalty or how its carried out and not with feeling any sympathy for the criminal?
    To jump to an extreme, would opposing the death penalty for drunk driving, or molestation, or any other crime be 'sympathy' for the criminal? Or just not thinking the punishment fits the crime?
     
  7. AaylaSecurOWNED

    AaylaSecurOWNED Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    May 19, 2005
    Yeah, only this perverted generation and Jesus, right?
     
  8. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    The court found that the ultimate punishment for one of the most horrific crimes that can occur to a human being is out of bounds to be determined by the people and their elected representatives. The same applies to the fight against mandatory minimums and leniency on child rapists and predators out of a perverse and misguided sense of 'rehabilitation' for these individuals rather than justice and consequence. It has no Constitutional basis, as it is laughable that the Framers, when they wrote the Constitution, thought that executing a child rapist is 'cruel and unusual punishment' or that a court would actually decide so. Laughable!

    I'm not defending the death penalty itself - as I'm generally against it, but I find these unelected tyrants making such decisions abhorrent. It's the usual same suspects that invent law and rights out of thin air, stepping outside of their authority to satisfy their politics and their sensitivities.
     
  9. DarthKomar

    DarthKomar Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 22, 2007
    I think the death penalty isn't fitting. Let the punishment fit the crime I say.

    Cut their...well...ummm...you know, off.
     
  10. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    If you want this to be about what the Constitutional framers would have expected, then you would also feel that the legislature should decide about the following crimes, as being eligible for the death penalty today still?
    Rape, Criminal assault, Kidnapping, Robbery/rape/kidnapping, Burglary, Train Robbery, Arson, Theft, Horse stealing, Forgery, Counterfeiting, Sodomy/buggery/bestiality, Concealing the birth/death of an infant, Witchcraft

    Those have all had the death penalty and been carried out post-Constitution. However, I would contend that all of those are not criminals severe enough to be worthy of the death penalty. And it is within the Constitution to leave for determination what is or is not considered to violate the restriction on "cruel and unusual punishments".
     
  11. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    The referral to the 'evolving standards of decency' that the court relied upon here is more appropriately titled 'devolving standards and indecency' as justification for their asinine ruling made up from thin air.

    Executing child rapists is within the authority of States to provide such law, but these tyrants in black cloth impose their oligarchical will and their own political ideology - outside of their given role, the rule of law, and the rights of the people.

    It's an outrage, but the ruling is unsurprising considering the perverse ideology that it arises from.
     
  12. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    It's only tyranny if you disagree with them, Dennis. Just wait 10-20 more years. Then you'll really be hopping mad.
     
  13. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    My point before was entirely ignored, so I'll make a similar point again. If you want it, fix the constitution. There's nothing terribly new about this, in that in 1977, the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty was a cruel punishment for rape in Coker v. Georgia. In 1982, Enmund v. Florida decided that the "Death penalty is not allowed for a person who is a minor participant in a felony and does not kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill."

    You want your say, then fix the 8th ammendment.
     
  14. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    The Amendment process may be ultimately required, but executing child rapists is hardly 'cruel and unusual punishment' as has been previously stated.

    This should be a legitimate issue in the fall campaign as to the type of jurists that Obama will appoint, jurists that find the death penalty for child rapists 'cruel and unusual'.



     
  15. Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon

    Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2000
    For many of us to whom it is apparent that human existence ends at death, murder is indeed a much more grave crime than rape. Horrific and damaging as rape is, it doesn't compare to the willful annihilation of another human's existence.

    But really, I don't look at this as a decision saying rape is less bad than murder. I look at it as baby steps towards the eventual abolition of the death penalty.:)
     
  16. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    Again, executing child rapists would only lead to the deaths of more rape victims.
     
  17. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    Well, then both the courts and I will disagree with you on the death penalty not fitting the crime.
     
  18. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    The Louisiana Supreme Court (overturned by the ruling) certainly didn't agree with you on the validity of the application:

    The USSC overstepped their authority, revoking the right of the people to determine appropriate punishment to fit serious crimes. If you don't agree with the application of the death penalty, it should be codified in law legislatively and conversely is the right of the people to decide that capital punishment be viable for the most heinous of crimes.

    The 'standards of decency' invoked are questionable at best, that child rape isn't a heinous enough crime for a criminal to be executed. Were you to be the parent of a young child raped by a criminal, I'm not quite sure your sympathies would remain the same, as you watch your child suffer through their lives with their ordeal.

    Like I said, I'm not generally a proponent of the death penalty, but I find it difficult to oppose it in cases such as this if the people of the State decide it appropriate - as is their right to do so, regardless of the reasoning by these oligarchical tyrannical jurists.

    Child rape is certainly a valid reason to carry out justice via execution if a State decides it appropriate. It is one of the most heinous of crimes that exist and has permanent lasting effects on the victim.

    But, as usual in the last forty years, these jurists have become an ever more unaccountable and tyrannical legislative body rather than an analytical branch for Constitutionality.

    Amazing that we've come to a point where child rape can be relativized by some as not severe enough to warrant the ultimate penalty.

    Standards of decency, indeed.
     
  19. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    The whole point is that the Supreme Court determines how these laws relate to the Constitution. The people could ammend if the current interpretation is not what they want.

    That you say thats the main way to change my mind makes me think this is law based on vengence, not on punishment. Or I could say that maybe had you been closer to a situation where someone was murdered, you would not throw around the idea of equating something with murder as lightly as you are doing so now.
    Simply put, to suggest that anything that isn't the intentional taking of life is worthy of execution is something that, to me, completely washes away the distinction of just how significant and special life is.

    Would you also feel it within a state's right to make robbery, or theft, or rape of an adult, or kidnapping also crimes that can lead to the death penalty?

    So is your line for what should or should not be considered eligible for the death penalty? A certain threshhold at wich the death penalty is not a cruel punishment and fits the crime? Or do you think that the death penalty is ok for any crime so long as the people feel it should be?

    Because its not the ultimate crime.
     
  20. Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon

    Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2000
    For the very fact that it IS the ultimate penalty, I consider it entirely indecent to kill anyone, for ANY reason. The only time killing should be tolerable is in instances where the individual in question presents an immediate danger to individuals/society.
     
  21. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    My point is that this is a new interpretation by these jurists that is not reflective of the 'cruel and unusual' portion of the Constitution, and has not been so throughout our Democratic Republic until they expanded the definition to fit their current political sensitivities as you pointed out previously.

    Although I completely agree with the special nature of life, I do agree that the State has compelling interest - if decided by the people of that State - that an individual forefits all their rights - including life and liberty - when they rape a child.


    Yes, if the people of the States decide it appropriate as has been Constitutional since our inception, until the modern reinterpretation of the law not based on any code but on the 'evolving standards of decency' implied by these jurists, which has trumped the standard of the Constitution to them.

    I already explained that I'm generally personally opposed to the death penalty (not out of personal sympathy for criminals), although I can agree to its application in heinous cases such as first degree murder, treason, child rape, and terrorism.

    I'm sure you understand that the public does not find capital punishment 'ok' so long as people think it to be, in the case of minor crimes and so on which would be unusual.

    However, the people of Louisiana felt that this particular crime warrants capital punishment, and I think it is within their rights to expect such criminals to be executed for such crimes.... as would have been the case in times of less ambiguity.

    It is not cruel or unusual to execute a child rapist.

    Like I said, it's amazing that it has been relativized as it has.
     
  22. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    So you feel any crime is eligible for the death penalty if enough people support it as such? Isn't that, in itself, creating a sitaution where it evolves over time?

    First of all, how is the supreme court ruling against child molestors a sign that they're symathetic to child molestors, yet you opposing the death penalty ISN'T you sympathetic for murderers? For that matter, how do you say you're opposed to it, but can agree to it? That seems contradictory. Especially as you're still clearly drawing a line here, but without any reasoning as to where that line lies. Why is it raping a girl a few days before her birthday, who would be a minor, lead to the death penalty, but raping her a few days after her birthday should NOT be a death penalty case?

    For lesser cases, why shouldn't it apply to theft, or to burglary? Are you saying you're sympathetic to robbers because that used to be an executable offense and no longer is? Or are you saying that something has.... changed over time with respect to the views on those sorts of crimes?

    I'd say thats something that you've not sufficiently made a case for as to why the death penalty is NOT a cruel punishment for that crime, aside from repeating the claim.

    To me, to say that any crime that one is not dead after is on par with murder as far as how 'ultimate' it is compltely trivialises the value of human life.
     
  23. Darth Mischievous

    Darth Mischievous Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    My complaint was about the process, was it not?

    Things do evolve over time, but it is up to the people - not unelected jurists - to determine these standards, whether pro or con.

    First, they found executing child rapists to be cruel and unusual and outside the boundary of 'the standard of decency'. I do not.

    I do not generally oppose the death penalty for serious criminals out of sympathy for them (I think they should take full responsibility for their crimes), but that it is an easy way out for them. I would rather someone work from dusk until dawn breaking big rocks into small rocks with no entertainment, no outside communication, and no respite reflecting on their crime until their natural death than get a quick and easy injection.

    If they repent, they can accept the consequences, whether it be the death penalty or life at hard labor.

    I tend to think there has been overly dismissive views towards consequences for behavior in our society stemming from a generation that has great deficiencies in personal character and in taking personal responsibility to begin with.

    Everything is dismissed, anything goes. No consequences nor justice.

    There should be appropriate punishments for crimes, determined by the people as appropriate through the law by elected representation, while barring torture and other unusual punishments that are actual (not supposedly) cruel and unusual.

    You've made it plain that you don't think child rape is a serious enough crime to warrant capital punishment, even though there is no actual Constitutional basis to deny a State from imposing the penalty on this heinous crime if the public demands it.

    The decision by the USSC was based upon a ambiguous standard of 'decency', not Constitutionality.

    I understand your position.
     
  24. dizfactor

    dizfactor Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2002
    "Decency" in opposition to, oh, say... "cruelty."
     
  25. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    Did neither of you read what I posted earlier?

    When it comes to capital punishment, the 8th Amendment isn't the controlling part of the Constitution. It's the 14th Amendment, because it is the more recent and it explicitly allows the death penalty.

    To argue that the 8th overrules what the 14th allows would be to argue that alcohol is still illegal because the 18th Amendment says so, even though the more recent 21st Amendment changed that.

    And it has to be that way, or else the Constitution itself cannot be trusted. I mean, think about it. If you can just ignore a later amendment in favor of an earlier one, does that mean that we can argue that John Kerry should be VP right now, because he came in second in the Electoral College? Or how about getting rid of the direct election of Senators?

    Kimball Kinnison
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.