|
|
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
|
|
A MORAL QUANDRY
This is a tough one. A 6'4", 300 pound , 38 year old brutally rapes his 8 year old step-daughter. In the course of the attack, he inflicts what an expert witness describes are "the worst injuries I have seen." These injuries require surgery. After the attack the rapist calls two friends asking how to remove the blood from his carpet. He tells one friend that his step-daughter "became a lady today." Remember, the victim is eight years old.
The rapist pressures the girl to say that a teenager attacked her while she sorted Girl Scout cookies in her garage. 21 months later the girl tells her mother the truth. There is a trial and a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana jury renders a verdict. Guilty. During the sentencing phase of the trial, the rapist's God-daughter testifies that exactly the same thing had been done to her by the defendant some 20 years ago, when she was "8 or 9."
What do you do with such a piece of human garbage?
12 good people in Jefferson Parish decided that the only appropriate sentence was death. Morally, I couldn't agree more. This man is swine and lethal injection, Lousiana's prescribed method of execution is too humane for a cur like this.This is a case that begs for the return of crucifixtion.
I should state for the record that I love the Death Penalty. I think it should be extended to double-parking. I can't support it in Canada only because Canadian law doesn't have adequate protections against double jeporady and law enforcement is completely unaccountable here. But so far as this case goes, I could kill this "defendant" myself and not lose a wink of sleep over it. I would be morally hard-pressed to come up with a reason not to have this "man" drawn and quartered and having his entrails set on fire.
This is probably why I don't get to decide such things.I get a little emotional sometimes.
And as much as I ache for this bastard's death, it will probably never happen. Well, not by the needle anyway. You see, in Coker V. Georgia, The United States Supreme Court specifically banned the Death Penalty in rape cases where the victim is not killed. The wording of the decision left a loophole, though. Both the concurring and dissenting opinions referenced the rape of an "adult woman." The victim in this case is decidedly not adult. And if I could figure this out, you can bet that the Lousiana State Legislature did too. Except they beat me to it. They passed a statute allowing for a death sentence in rape cases where the victim is under 12 in 1995. The Lousiana State Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the statute.
But this is much more problematic than meets the eye. Most murderers in Lousiana do not face the Death Penalty. In fact, a good number are actually paroled before completing their full sentence. Is the rape of an 8 year old worse than say, the murder of an 8 year old? I would argue that in some ways, yes it is. But reasonable people can disagree on such a point.
Accordingly, this issue will end up in Washington and given the current make up of the Court, the sentence will be reversed. It might not come to that though. It doesn't have to be that way either.
Remember "Father" John Geoghan? Let's hope this scumbag meets the same fate. Hopefully, the Lousiana prison authourities are looking for a neo-nazi for this skunk to bunk with as we speak.
I feel "friendly" tonight.
|
|
|
| |
