US high court urged to revisit death penalty for child rape

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Justice Department has appealed to nation's highest court to re-hear a major death penalty case involving sentencing for child rapists, saying the ruling was made without all the facts.

The Supreme Court last month ruled 5-4 against the death sentence for child rapists, but did so without considering a 2007 executive order that makes child rape a crime punishable by death according to military law, the Justice Department said in a rare motion filed this week.

In the high court's ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana on June 25, Justice Anthony Kennedy said "there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape," due to the lack of recent executions and the low number of states that permit the death penalty for such...