by Mark Mukasa

Created on: August 25, 2009   Last Updated: August 27, 2009

This heinous and unimaginable evil committed by the child rapist would raise very strong emotions in people, rightly so in fact. However the Supreme Court decision to prohibit the usage of the death penalty in the case Kennedy v Louisiana (2008) was justified.

I am in no way condoning the actions of Patrick O. Kennedy, who's violent rape was uncommonly brutal. He is a vile person who sickens me. However the Supreme Court is in no way a moral compass for the United States. The Supreme Court's duty is to uphold the constitution and enforce it. It has no duties of enforcing what a certain segment of society might believe. Legally, the Supreme Court acted in a correct manner. The Supreme Court upheld the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause which can be inferred to prohibit the death penalty or punishment all together. The US Supreme Court cannot be faulted for interpreting the law and instituting a ban on the death penalty for child rapists. In addition from a legal perspective, any form of death penalty contradicts the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976). Therefore by upholding not only constitutional law, but international law, legally the US Supreme Court made the correct decision. Many would argue that doing so has made the law lean in the favour of the offender. However, perhaps the death penalty would be the easy way out for the offender.

Although many people would argue that pedophiles should be executed because they are vile creatures, death is the easy way out. If we are to properly punish the offender instead of immediate execution, a more adequate manner would be to incarcerate the offender for life. Ideally under minimal luxuries. For a crime as heinous as brutally raping a young child, death is too good of a punishment. Death would remove Patrick Kennedy from the long term feelings of remorse, anger and depression that he would suffer under a permanent incarceration. Therefore would not the death penalty be giving Kennedy a passport to oblivion which effectively removes him from punishment. While killing such a vile creature does seem like the right thing to do (and indeed feels like it), a more satisfying punishment would be to let him rot in a bleak damp prison with minimal luxuries whilst he thinks on his crimes.

In addition to this, not only is killing Kennedy an unfit punishment, but to kill Kennedy would be fixing an evil act with another evil act. Corporal punishment is in essence evil. Although I acknowledge

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