If you punish rapists with death, why would they ever leave a victim alive?
This is why a lot of what used to be capital crimes had the punishments made less severe. Robbery used to be a capital crime. Until jurists started noticing that robbery victims inevitably turned up dead or disappeared without a trace.
Not all rapists are killers, but your point is an excellent one.
Hmm ~ well, why? Go ask one.
That can’t be used as a justification to leave them alive.
Start hanging the scumbags and at least some of them will be afraid to rape and not do it.
That is the only reason I can think of NOT to punish rapists and child molestors with death.
There is nothing inconsistent with punishing the guilty with death, and trying to spare the innocent. Only the sick minds of the Left could confuse the two.
A large fraction of rapists know the victim or are even related, and a large number of rapes are actually unreported. But you make sense. The pragmatic problem with the death penalty for rape is that it gives the rapist much more incentive to kill his victim. Pretty much the same problem with draconian, measures like a life sentence. I favor harsh punishment for rape, short of life, in order to protect the lives of rape victims.