Posted on 05/25/2006 10:56:41 AM PDT by acad1228
A bill to allow the death penalty to be assessed against a person who commits a second sex offense against a child under 14 years old passes the state Senate.
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Wow, that's great! I'm moving to Oklahoma!
Its about time the legislatures started passing this type of law. Too bad SCOTUS will strike it down in due time.
OK, but I think you should have all the sex offenders move there as well...
Oklahoma has it's head attached straight.
Ah.... Yeah, Thank you, no. We have more than our share, hence this legislation.
I want the "and-your-gonna-get-beat-senseless-and-we-hang-you-from-a-light-pole-and-let-the-crows-pick-your-eyes-out" amendment.
This is great. I hope this type of legislation gets passed in all 50 states.
I've said it before. These sex offenders are broken beyond our ability to fix them. They need to be sent back to their Maker for repair.
I doubt the SCOTUS will strike it down. There are several crimes in state and federal codes that allow the death penalty (i.e. rape and kidnapping). The SCOTUS is more interested in how the rights of the accused are handled. In my opinion, it will be more likely that we would see a case where the SCOTUS strikes down a specific class of defendants (like juveniles or the mentally retarded) that to strike a specific set of crimes. If the SCOTUS killed the death penalty for sex crimes, how far would it be to strike it down for treason? The Constitution does not explicitly say which crimes can be punished with death, and I think that with our new justices, it will be interpreted that way. State Supreme Courts are another matter.
I agree that anyone who repeats such an offense deserves the death penalty. (For that matter, anyone who commits the first offense deserves it.)
However, I would worry that this law might give the sex offender an incentive to kill his victim. If he is subject to the death penalty anyway, it would be tempting to get rid of the witness.
Of course it will be struck down, and based on very clear SCOTUS precedent as well. So you have to ask yourself, what's the point? Just politicians pandering, as usual.
The only thing wrong with this is they have to wait for a second child's life to be damaged b/f cleaning up the gene pool.
What precedent?
This should apply to any rapist, but it's moot. The Supreme Court ruled years ago that you cannot execute for rape, punishment exceeds the crime as I recall.
A step in the right direction. Hoepfully they also have automatic death penalty for child killers.
Uh..oh! The Gay ...er...NAMBLA lobbyists are going to get their panties in a wad over this.
Excessive punishment or something like that. Regardless, this is a good law and should be expanded to armed robbery, IMHO.
So someone that touches a 13yo twice, gets the same punishment as someone that rapes a 13yo twice?
It's not a question of striking it down so much as it is a question of overruling their previous decision in Coker v. Georgia, which basically struck down the death penalty for anything other than murder. It doesn't look like there are five votes on the Court to do that.
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