Child-rape Ruling Scuttles State's Law

By Barbara Hoberock/Capitol Bureau, Tulsa World ~ Action by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday tossed out a recently enacted Oklahoma law calling for the death penalty for repeat child molesters.

The nation's high court, ruling in a Louisiana death penalty case, limited capital punishment to those who commit murder.

In the Louisiana case, Patrick Kennedy had been on death row for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

The Oklahoma Legislature in 2006 passed and Gov. Brad Henry signed Senate Bill 1800, which allowed for the death penalty for repeat child molesters.

The measure covered forcible anal or oral sodomy, rape, rape by instrumentation or lewd molestation of a child under the age of 14 years old. It applied to anyone with a prior offense of those crimes. The law took effect July 1, 2006.

At the time of passage, one of the measure's authors, Sen. Jonathon Nichols, R-Norman, said he thought the U.S. Supreme Court would agree that raping a child is so heinous and horrific that it justified the death penalty. Nichols, at the time, said he believed the earlier court decision banning the death penalty for rapists only applied to those who rape adults. On Wednesday, he called the decision heartless.

"Child molestation and rape is as every bit as devastating to a life as murder," said Sen. Jay Paul Gumm, D-Durant, who proposed legislation calling for the death penalty for repeat child molesters. His measure was later included in Senate Bill 1800. "It kills the soul. I believe it is worthy of the highest punishment we can mete out."

Charlie Price, a spokesman for Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, said no inmates are on death row as a result of the new law. The office is working to determine if any cases are pending.

The court's 5-4 decision struck down a Louisiana law that allows capital punishment for people convicted of raping children under 12. It spares the only people in the U.S. under sentence of death for that crime — Kennedy and another Louisiana man, convicted of raping a 5-year-old girl.

However devastating the crime to children, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion, "the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child."

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