U.S. Supreme Court
Blogger Points Out Substantial Error in Supreme Court Decision
Posted Jul 2, 2008, 06:34 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A blogger has pointed out an important fact missed by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the authors of 10 Supreme Court briefs: The military has a law authorizing the death penalty for child rape.
Kennedy wrote the majority opinion last week in Kennedy v. Louisiana, a 5-4 decision barring the death penalty for child rape. Kennedy wrote that, based on consensus and the court’s own independent judgment, the penalty is unconstitutional for rapes that don’t end in death. He said rape is not a capital offense under the laws of 44 states or the federal government.
Kennedy was mistaken, according to blogger Dwight Sullivan, the New York Times reports. Two years ago Congress voted to make child rape an offense meriting the death penalty under the military justice system. Sullivan is a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve who works for the Air Force as a civilian defense lawyer handling death penalty appeals.
Sullivan titled his blog post “The Supremes dis the military justice system.” His conclusion: Military justice remains the Rodney Dangerfield of legal systems.
“We’re not talking about ancient history,” Sullivan told the Times in an interview. “This happened in 2006.”
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Comments
Posted by Daniel S. Kleinberger - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 23 hours, 32 minutes ago
This omission is more than a “dis [to] the military justice system.” The fact substantially undermines the ruling, which is based on the premise of a social consensus against the death penalty for rape of a child. Talk about ignoring “an inconvenient truth.”
I wonder whether the defenders of the statute failed to bring the fact to the Court’s attention.
Posted by Grant - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 39 minutes ago
The Court also opined that child rape is less heinous, and therefore more acceptable in a civilized society, than intentional murder. I can’t follow the logic. I’ve met some adults who I though were deserving of death, regardless of the mental state of their executioner. I’ve never met a child who deserved to be rape.
Posted by Norbert Basil MacLean III - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 16 hours, 52 minutes ago
The reason the civilian lawyers, the Justices and the general public didn’t know about the military death penatly rape statute is because Congress never had any hearings on it. Not one single Congressional committee has had any hearings on the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 25 years - since the Military Justice Act of 1983.
What occured was that the Pentagon, through former Department of Defense general counsel Jim Haynes proposed the rape death penatly statute to Congress. It was crafted by the Joint Service Committee on Military Justice and then passed onto Congress. It was then slipped into the National Defense Authorization Act with no Congressional hearings. That’s why it was off of everyone’s radar.
In 2002, U.S. News & World Report in a cover story “Unequal Justice” reported that Congress has had a shocking lack of interest in America’s own military justice system. Perhaps this is the reason that the Supreme Court chose to ignore the miltiary justice system. There aren’t any checks and balances by the other branches of government pertaining to our own uniformed citizens. The executive branch can pretty much do as it sees fit unfettered without any oversight
Posted by Justice Dan - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes ago
This shows the aburdity of the federal legislative system that allows logrolling [ more than one purpose}in bills. Because this was an authrization act, the text was undoubtedlt enormous and completely unrelated. I would bet that no Congressman was even aware of it.
Posted by THAT LAWYER DUDE - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 13 hours, 9 minutes ago
Military Justice… an oxymoron.
Posted by Paul - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes ago
There is one very important, key consideration with regard to the SCOTUS decision:
The death penalty for child rape provides an incentive to kill the victim.
If you challenge this, then you challenge the whole deterrent argument which justifies any application of the death penalty. The thought that a child rapist might kill even one victim to avoid the death penalty (by eliminating a key witness) is more abhorrent to me than life sentences for a dozen child rapists.
Posted by Wiliam - 1 month, 3 weeks, 5 days, 11 hours, 28 minutes ago
Paul writes: “The death penalty for child rape provides an incentive to kill the victim.”
WRONG: Live imprisonment for child rape provides an incentive to kill the victim. The death penalty that may result from such an act provides the only counter-incentive NOT to kill the victim.
Posted by J.D. - 1 month, 3 weeks, 1 day, 14 hours, 24 minutes ago
Jesus… with Paul’s thinking (#6), this profession will surely fail.
And more kids will be raped.
But, hey. If the Lefties on the Court think sucking fetus brain from a woman’s womb is okay, why would they fret over a little child rape? So disgusting.