Allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty for child rapists seems to be gaining ground. At least four other states – Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina – have added the death option to their versions of “Jessica’s Law,” named for Jessica Lunsford, a nine-year-old child raped and buried alive in Florida by a man with prior sex crime convictions.
Under the Florida law, a defendant faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring for “lewd or lascivious acts” committed against a child under 12. Committing sexual battery or raping a child under 12 is a capital offense in that state. If convicted, a pedophile faces only two possibilities: death or life in prison with no chance of parole. The governor of Texas has promised to sign a similar bill with a death penalty option into law.
Will sentencing child rapists to death deter future child rapes? Of course not, but deterrence isn’t the only reason to mete out the death penalty.
The concept of retributive justice underpins our nation’s criminal laws. In our pampered, politically correct, psycho-babbling society, we’ve forgotten that criminals must be punished – not merely removed from society or rehabilitated – and punishing criminals is just, whether or not punishment deters future crimes.
Our government is charged with protecting citizens and punishing lawbreakers, and perverts who hurt the most vulnerable citizens should receive harsh punishment. Man’s idea of harsh punishment, however, pales in comparison to God’s. One day each of us will face the ultimate Judge. I hope Kennedy and other child rapists suffer for all eternity in the deepest bowels of hell.
But then again, I harbor a politically incorrect bias against child rapists.
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