Certiorari Grant on Death Penalty and Child Rape

The Supreme Court granted certiorari today in Kennedy v. Louisiana, No. 07-343.  The question presented:

Does the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause permit a state to punish the crime of rape of a child under 12, who survived the rape, with the death penalty, and does Louisiana's capital rape statute violate the Eighth Amendment in insufficiently narrowing the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty?

Set aside the constitutional issues, and consider only Catholic moral/social thought.  The question is to Catholics who reject JPII's reasoning in Evangelium Vitae and think that the death penalty may be morally appropriate in some cases as matter of redress/retribution.  Does anyone argue that Catholic thought can justify the death penalty in a case where the offender, although committing a heinous act, has not taken a life?

Tom