Texas to defend law on executing child rapists
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
When Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst championed a state law last year to execute child rapists, he said the bill sent a simple, clear message: Don't mess with kids in Texas.
Texas is one of six states that include child rape as a crime deserving of the death penalty -- even if the victim survives -- ending a long tradition of limiting capital punishment in state crimes to murder cases.
"I believe rape cases involving children are so heinous the death penalty is an appropriate sentence," Dewhurst said recently.
Today, Texas will go before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend its version of the law. The case before the justices is an appeal from a Louisiana inmate to toss out his death sentence and bar capital punishment for child rape.
Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz is scheduled to participate to make the case for Texas and eight other states -- Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Washington -- that child rape is such a "singular horror" that it warrants the death penalty.
"In recent years, society has become more and more aware of the unique and irreparable harm caused by violent child rape," Cruz said.
Opponents warn that the laws will further traumatize the victims by making them testify again and again as the cases make their way through the courts. They also worry that the laws will deter reporting of assaults and make rapists more likely to kill their victims.
"It could have the opposite of the desired effect," said Benitez, executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault. "The more kids that don't report, those offenders are left out in the community to prey on more children."
Uncertainty about ruling
Patrick Kennedy, a 44-year-old man with an IQ of 70, was convicted and sentenced to die for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1998 in their suburban New Orleans home.
Before his conviction, Kennedy had a record of writing bad checks, but not violent crime.
He is one of two inmates on Louisiana's Death Row convicted of raping an adult or a child. The last time someone was put to death for rape was 1964, when a Missouri man was sent to the gas chamber.
Louisiana's 1995 law allows for the execution of a person convicted of aggravated rape of a child 12 or younger.
Other states are considering similar laws.
A Supreme Court decision in 1977 states that someone cannot be executed for raping an adult. That ruling, according to briefs in the Kennedy case, dealt specifically with the rape of an adult, not a child.
Christopher Landau, an attorney for Missouri, said the states want the Supreme Court to clear up any ambiguity about the death penalty prohibition, allowing their legislatures to debate the issue. Missouri is considering a similar law.
"The obvious reason it's not done more because there is uncertainty about the '77 ruling," Landau said.
Landau said it is typically up to the states to decide what kind of punishment is meted out by their courts.
Unintended results?
Annette Clay, executive director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, doesn't think any punishment is too harsh for sexual predators who attack children. Still, she opposes the new Texas law.
Clay and others say that family members or close friends are responsible for most sexual assaults of children and that those assaults are already reported at a dismally low rate. The possibility that the attacker will be executed creates an even bigger disincentive, she said.
Strangers who raped would have no incentive to let their victims live, Clay added.
"I understand where they are coming from and I appreciate their motives, but where my concerns are is that the results will be very different from what they intended," Clay said.
KEY COURT FACTS
Here are some of the facts in the U.S. Supreme Court debate.
Six states allow for the execution of child rapists: Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.
Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Montana allow the death penalty for child rape, but only for repeat offenders. In Texas, prosecutors can seek the death penalty or life without parole only after a second conviction of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14.
In recent years, more than a dozen people wrongfully convicted of child rape have been exonerated.
Child sex abuse is one of the most underreported crimes. According to one study, 83 percent of female rape survivors under 18 do not report the abuse to authorities. Another study states that in the rapes of girls 12 or younger, 96 percent knew the rapist.
Sources: Death Penalty Information Center, Texas' U.S. Supreme Court brief
maxbaker@star-telegram.com
