Nixon, too, backs death penalty for child rapists
Though he probably didn’t mention it today, Gov. Matt Blunt’s old sparring partner, Attorney General Jay Nixon, also backs the death penalty for child rapists.
Blunt, speaking at an afternoon news conference in Clayton, underscored, once again, his support for a bill that would make the aggravated rape of a minor a capital offense.
It’s a stance that Nixon, a Democrat now running for Blunt’s job, shares as well.
Nixon and Blunt have attached their name to separate briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving a Louisiana man sentenced to death for raping his eight-year-old stepdaughter at their home near New Orleans.
The issue has special resonance in Missouri because, had there already been a law making child rapists eligible for the death penalty, kidnapper Michael Devlin might be facing lethal injection instead of life in prison.
Though the debate is clearly laden with intense emotions, legally, it’s right out of a 1L textbook: Is child rape heinous enough to warrant the state’s ultimate penalty? Or is executing someone for a crime other than murder violate the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment?
Both Blunt and Nixon argue the former. Here’s some of the argument from Nixon’s brief:
Violent child rape is unique. No other crime inflicts comparable damage. And no other crime requires the peculiar depravity manifested by those who rape small children. The pitiless infliction of permanent lifelong suffering upon a young child reflects a degree of culpability, a degree of manifest evil, that is qualitatively distinct.
In his press conference today, Blunt essentially makes the same argument.
“We’re talking about the most horrendous crimes one can imagine and it deserves the harshest penalty possible,” Blunt said. “It is the punishment that fits the crime.”
The biggest problem with these escalating punishments is that the crimes are less likely to be reported. Most of the sexual assaults are committed by friends or family. If grandma finds out her son is molesting one of her grandchildren, do we really think she would turn him in if he could be put to death. Instead she will “attempt” to handle it within the family. Punishment should be left to prosecutors, judges and jurors, not politicians looking for headlines.
I am against the death penalty for several reasons which I will not go into now. However, I do think that child rapists, child molesters etc, need longer sentences in jail. From what I read in the paper, a fair number of those molesters get off relatively easy compared to what they did.
If we need more jails, I will support that. We need tough penalties for heinous crimes.
It is about time that the candidates put eh focus on the victims. Blunt and Nixon are on board something Loudon (the husband) filed last year. If the families want a guy like Devlin to die, then that should be an option. Kudos to Loudon, Blunt and Nixon for raising the issue.
Bill makes an excellent point. Another difficulty is that child sex abuse cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute and hard to prove. This is one reason for the weakness in punishments for some offenders. Sometimes a prosecutor has to take what he or she can get to avoid going to a jury because of reluctance or weakness of witnesses. This can lead to great disparity in the degree of punishment for similar offenses. That isn’t just. Let’s face it, Devlin may be the monster we visualize when we talk about putting child rapists to death, but he plead guilty and wouldn’t have faced the ultimate punishment anyhow.
Bill (#1) makes an excellent point.
While I can certainly understand someone wanting to kill a child molester, we simply shouldn’t be executing people for crimes in this country. “The Innocent Man” by John Grisham, a true story of a man almost executed for a rape/murder he did not commit, confirmed my suspicions about the dubious nature of the death penalty and its many flaws.
whoa nellie! comment #1 from bill states the issue clearly. I might go further to state that if a mandatory death penalty is inacted the percentage of survivors may decrease sadly.
My question is why did Blunt have a problem supporting the tougher version of the Jessica Law when that Bill was on the table? Why the change of heart now?
Back then, Blunt was UNWILLING to support a minimum 25 year sentence for the sexual abuse of a child in the tougher version of the Jessica Law Bill, but now he is willing to put them to death? What is the motive behind the Governor’s madness now?
Bill seems unaware that these “politicians” are legislators. They’re there to make laws.