This is very morbid reasoning, but it's valid. It helps to ensure that rapists actually get caught and tossed in jail, and it protects the lives of rape victims. We get this in exchange for shorter sentences for rapists. This beats the hell out of not catching them at all.
"Here's the deal: if there is no difference in penalty between a rape and a rape plus murder, then there is no reason for rapists not to murder their victims. Murdering the victim eliminates (in many cases) the only witness, so there's plenty of incentive to do it already. Not having any additional punishment for doing it aggravates this problem.
This is very morbid reasoning, but it's valid. It helps to ensure that rapists actually get caught and tossed in jail, and it protects the lives of rape victims. We get this in exchange for shorter sentences for rapists. This beats the hell out of not catching them at all."
I don't know if you know just how morbid the reasoning sounds. What happened to the reasoning that the mind of a rapist is really no different than the mind of a killer.
Might as well start teaching children in elementary school how to kill a rape attacker, because one thing is for certain, rapist do go free to rape again.
A few generations ago rape was indeed a capital crime. A lot of people say that if rape was a capital crime, rapists would kill the victim. Did that happen more when rape was punished by execution?
I don't think so.
Here's a solution: Rape = quick execution. Rape+murder = slow painful death.