Posted on 11/22/2011 6:24:31 AM PST by Kaslin
Child rape is an unforgivable offense and should be severely punished. It should be a capital crime.
Unfortunately and unwisely, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 struck down a Louisiana law that provided for the death penalty in cases of child rape. Part of the court's rationale was that only a few states had such laws at the time, and they saw no national consensus even though there were several proposed laws in additional states and the movement was growing.
I am calling on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation against this horrific crime without delay. The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 should be updated to include child rape. Perhaps then the Supreme Court will get a clue about how the American people really feel.
I write as a victim of this crime when I was very young, and I can testify that it is an experience that forever scars its victims. We might think of child rape as an "unspeakable" crime, but the fact is we need to speak up for the sake of our children.
The recent scandal at Penn State once again shows that there are adults among us who prey on the very young. As far as I am concerned, such adults should be punished as severely as the law allows. It is an offense against the most vulnerable among us.
That this latest incident occurred at a center of learning, famed among other things for its stellar athletic programs, shows that no place is immune from episodes of sexual abuse of the young. Where there are youngsters in abundance, as at a college campus or a school yard, there is a strong possibility that there will also be predators lurking about and scheming to abuse them sexually.
The thing about the Penn State case that most shocks me is the absolute failure of some of the college's authorities to deal with a crime on their campus that could not have escaped their notice. Long-famed for winning football teams managed by one of the nation's top coaches, Penn State will now be remembered as the site of dismal failure in protecting children
Parents need to be aware of this problem and should see to it that their youngsters are given appropriate guidance that they must be careful to avoid situations where they might be victimized by adult child abusers, and that they must promptly report any attempt by adults to abuse them sexually.
As I wrote above, as a youngster I was abused by an adult. Because I was very young and not aware that I was a victim and not a willing participant in this crime, I failed to report this abuse to my parents or to the authorities. I fear that today's victims might share this fear and unknowingly allow their abusers to avoid the harsh punishments they deserve to experience. That exposes other youngsters to victimization, so our children need encouragement to speak up as well.
Let it never be forgotten that child abuse, especially by sexual predators, is a widespread crime. Let all parents remain alert to any signs that their youngsters are victims of sex abuse by adults. Your children need you.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg spent a large part of her professional life trying to get the age of consent lowered to, I believe, twelve years old.
Yeah tell that to 13 year old Esme Kenney...
Coroner: Esme Kenney Strangled, Burned
http://www.wlwt.com/news/18895267/detail.html
In 1987, when he was 18, Kirkland confessed to assaulting a woman, dousing her with lighter fluid and setting her on fire. She later died and he served 16 years in prison for her death.
Death is the only answer for these monsters.
I agree but good luck getting the Vatican on-board with that...
A serious proposal.
A signed pledge, that if called to sit on a jury, parents swear that they will never find anyone charged with the murder, homicide, etc., of a child rapist, guilty.
In the spirit of this:
No Trial For Mom Who Shot Alleged Molester
Grand Jury Refuses To Indict
http://www.wlwt.com/news/1282970/detail.html
Does this apply when an 18 year old girl screws her 17 year old boyfriend on prom night? What about a 19 year old young man marrying a 15 year old girl, as occurs in my own family tree not too many generations back? Or a naive and immature and foolish 21 year old babysitter who “makes a man” out of a horny 13 year old boy in her care? And that’s apart from witch hunts with zero physical evidence like the McMartin Preschool case. There are shades of grey here, unfortunately.
I’d say to make death an option in cases where an adult rapes a pre-pubescent child, to be applied in cases aggravated by torture, physical injury, transmission of a deadly disease such as HIV or hepatitis, a very young victim (under age 7 perhaps), repeat offenses, etc. If you make it mandatory, a lot of victims would be killed to eliminate the witness.
I will go for rule of law over anarchy, and work to root out corruption over living in the law of the jungle.
Not many people would say that.
Not because they don’t have a different view, but because the majority accepts only the most extreme view as legitimate and does not want to, is afraid to, deal with individual circumstances.
They only draw the line by admitting that false accusations are possible and some prosecutors stop at nothing to get a conviction and the resulting public approval while the facts are cloaked in confidentiality and general unspeakableness.
It would include murder, rape (of anyone), kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated assault ...
Not objecting ... merely observing.
Might severely curb the enthusiasm some criminals.
Maybe it could be called the "Jerry Sandusky Act"?
Tell what?
The problem there isn’t that Kirkland raped a child, got a life sentence, and somehow raped another child. The problem is that Kirkland raped, burned and killed a woman and was freed after 16 years to kill again. If he got a life sentence it sure didn’t mean life. Life sentences should never mean parole is possible.
Here’s a case in France, where a teenage rapist was freed after four MONTHS and promptly raped, burned and killed a 13 y.o. girl.
Vendome’s version of a just and proper punishment:
I would chain his hands and legs, then pulled him up four flights of metal fire escape stairs, feet first.
Then I would kick him in the family jewels just enough to cause a stomach ache every 15 minutes for 8 hours.
After that I would push him out a window letting him fall four stories into a pile of razor wire 5 rolls high and 5 rolls wide.
He could lay in the pile of razor wire for two days in the desert sun and then I would release a flock of crows and 1 gallon of scarabs right next to him.
But that’s just me.
I would include brain death in the list. There are women who have persisted in vegetative states after someone slipped them the "date rape drug" rohypnol. I would also include attempted murder where there is serious bodily injury. Why should an attempted murderer get convicted of a lesser crime just because an emergency room physician is able to save a victim who in earlier times would have died of his or her injuries?
Glad to hear it.
Executing pedos and rapists should be considered a really late term abortion. Liberals want to abort handicapped babies, why not monsters?
Abortion is a monstrous atrocity.
Executing pedos and rapists is justice.
“Not many people would say that.”
You’d be surprised. In my group therapy, it was almost 50%. And we were only discussing jail, not death.
The thing that people rarely understand is that long-term child molesters tend to recognize and groom susceptible children - children who’ve been emotionally neglected their whole lives. The abuser makes him or herself emotionally important to the victim, creating a situation where the abuser is relatively safe because the victim - while not liking the physical relationship - becomes dependent on the emotional one.
Often, the abuser is the first person in a child’s life to show that child what the child comes to think of as non-physical parental love and affection.
Those feelings don’t easily go away. That’s part of the reason why adult survivors of child sexual abuse have so many conflicts over actually comprehending that they were genuinely victims in a criminal situation.
Indeed, that is the point. When a criminal commits a crime in which the victim would be justified resisting with deadly force, it is the criminal who has voluntarily subordinated the value of his own life to the fruits of the crime. Again, I'm not saying capital punishment should be mandatory in all such cases, but the option should be there...
Right now the ‘American’ Psychiatric Association is attempting to downgrade pedophilia from a mental illness to being in the “normal range”. This is being done because states have used the mental illness diagnosis to continue to incarcerate serial pedophiles after their criminal term has ended.
Therefore, before a capital penalty law against child rape is created, states should first create its legal underpinnings, which would amount to “mentally ill but can still be executed”, or such sentences would be too easy to overturn on appeal.
Another big obstacle is that, depending on the situation, what is called “child rape” could result in a sentence all the way from capital punishment down to probation. (That is, two teenagers have sex. Have they both committed ‘child rape’?) While some of this has been addressed in the laws calling for capital punishment, it really must be flushed out in detail to prevent miscarriage of justice in either direction.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.