Two significant Supreme Court rulings came down this morning. The justices ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional in cases of child rape, and they capped the damages Exxon must pay to the victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Slate.com Senior Editor Emily Bazelon joins us to discuss the details.
Comments [8]
These animals should be first on the death penalty list.
More opportunities are lost to indecision than to bad decisions.
please just say no to bush-mccain
It is not for the State to decide when someone dies.
Ever notice if you ask a lawyer a question they don't know the answer to they say, "It depends" or "that is interesting."
Death penalty is cruel and unusual. Loss of liberty, life in prison is enough.
This is not any rape, this is raping a child. A person who does this really should not inhabit this planet. And I generally don't support the death penalty, I do NOT support the death penalty. But this crime is at the pinnacle of the worst.
Ms. Bazelon's podcasts at Slate are very entertaining and interesting. I don't agree with some of her views (I supported Clinton), but the Slate podcasts really flush out the issues.
It seems a little audacious for the Court to decide what deserves the death penalty and what does not. Child rape does not deserve the death penalty, they say. You could probably make a stronger case for executing a child rapist than someone who kills (or whose accomplice kills) while robbing a bank.
The point is: this really seems like legislating from the bench, not legal principle.
The punishment must fit the crime. Rape is horrible but it doesn't warrant the death penalty.
I'm sure there are real cases of child rape but there are also many children who are coached and lie. Anyone can make an accusation and someone is arrested and people convict them before the legal system can even deal with them. This is justice, we want justice for all and innocent until proven guilty and America is free of cruel and inhumane or unusual punishment not let's go crazy on a witch hunt and be hysterical.
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