by Chris Markel

Created on: August 21, 2008   Last Updated: July 02, 2011

The US Supreme Court's decision in the overturning of the death penalty for child rape in the case of Kennedy v. Louisiana is a correct decision. It was the majority decision of the court that the crime of rape is not proportional to the penalty of death. And if executed, it would violate the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In 1976, with the case of Coker v. Georgia, 433 US. 584, the US Supreme Court felt that the death penalty was "unconstitutionally excessive for rape of women and, by implication, for any crime where a death does not occur". The court's majority decision went on further to state that, "rape by definition does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person". But the minority in the decision felt that the issue "takes too little account of the profound suffering the crime imposes upon the victims and their loved ones".

Be that as it may, its not the US Supreme Court's function to measure the emotional impact a crime has on victims. Its duty is to determine the constitutionality of laws passed by state and federal legislature and court verdicts and decisions relating to criminal and civil case. It must be removed from public opinion that is so easily swayed by emotions. It makes decisions upon points of law as they relate to the US Constitution and secures the rights of every citizen in relation to laws that are passed by legislatures and decisions dealt by lesser courts.

Too often, has the appointments of justices to fill empty judicial seats, been political footballs that has influenced a president's decision; when a candidates credentials and record of judicial competence should be the primary criterion in his decision in filling the seat.

It is the Supreme Court's overturning of a decision like this case, that curbs the lynch mob mentality that many citizens of the United States are so prone to act upon when emotions such as hate motivate actions that violate other citizen's rights guaranteed by constitutional law.

Historically, people were hanged for stealing live stock and these "acts of justice" were executed by posies and vigilantes without due process, which is guaranteed by the Eighth amendment and later the fourteenth amendment. The Eighth Amendment addressed federal jurisdiction for due process. Then it was discovered that there was a the need for individual states to have the same definition of the right. Therefore the fourteenth amendment was written and ratified to secure the right of due process in the courts on the state level.

In 1993, with Herrea v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, the US Supreme Court elaborated upon the definition of Due Process in the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, holding that cases relating to the death penalty required extra procedural protections, even in such cases that involved the murder of a police officer as in the Herrea case. Homicide cases of a police officer always incite public concern and outrage. Nonetheless, it would appear that the Supreme Court's decision demanding more precise adherence to the right of a citizen was outweighed by the public's opinion.

But a question of even greater magnitude awaits the U.S. Supreme Courts decision. That is the Constitutional violation of the popular Patriot Act that clearly ignores the rights of every U.S. citizen.

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