The Death Penalty for Child-Rape

Constitutional doctrine relating to capital punishment is (in)famously tangled.  That said, one proposition that, I suspect, most who litigate, teach, or write in the area have long thought -- since Coker v. Georgia (1977), anyway -- one could take to the bank is that the death penalty is an unconstitutional punishment for non-homicide crimes.  The New York Times is reporting, though, that the Louisiana Supreme Court has "upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl.  Legal experts say the man, Patrick Kennedy, is the only inmate on death row in the United States who was not convicted of committing or participating in a killing."

For more, here is my post at the University of Chicago Law Faculty blog.