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At one time you could get the death penalty in Texas for the crime
of rape. I don't recall when they changed the law, but it was used.
I can't say that I like the trend of states trying to impose the death penalty outside the crime of murder. It is a dangerous tool of the states and should be limited in its application.
The Chattanoogan
Hill Advances Bill To Give Child Rapists Death Penalty
posted April 5, 2006
A House Subcommittee voted unanimously on Tuesday for legislation by State Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough) to make child rape a capital offense punishable by death or life imprisonment. It now heads to the House Judiciary Committee.
"This crime has a devastating effect on children,” said Rep. Hill. "Statistics show that by the time a child sexual offender is caught for the first time, they have usually molested six to eight children. The monsters who commit this crime deserve the most severe punishment meted out by our justice system.”
The bill elevates child rape to a Class A felony and stipulates that sentencing be conducted using the same procedure provided for offense of murder in the first degree.
Rep. Hill represents the 7th House District, which includes Jonesborough, Teleford, Leesburg and a portion of Johnson City. He is a member of the House Republican Caucus Whip Leadership Team and sits on the House Committee on Children and Family Affairs and the House Transportation Committee.
At one time you could get the death penalty in Texas for the crime
of rape. I don't recall when they changed the law, but it was used.
One argument for sentencing child molesters to death is that they are virtually unrehabilable.
But in that case, life in prison is more cost-effective anyway.
On the other hand, state executions probably are less painful than the kind of deaths child molesters not infrequently suffer at the hands of other inmates. See, a great many prisoners were abused and molested as children.
As a parent I'm down with death penalty for these s bags.
Mess with my kids and you'll see a man get mean.
If it were my kids and the state didnt, I would.
But the criteria for execution had better be very, VERY precise. No interpretation crap.
it NEVER is precise ENOUGH!
Anyone got proof that prison or death deters criminals?
Last edited by boutons_; 04-06-2006 at 02:22 PM.
Yeah, when you are dead, you don't do it again, stupid!
Murder should have the highest punishment available, whether that be death or not - otherwise, there is no remaining deterrant (however effective or not that might be) for the molester to go ahead and kill his victim.
There is actually very little, if any, proof.
The assumption is that the deterrent of prison exists for those not abnormally predisposed to criminal behavior. It generally keeps the honest, honest.
There is no data suggesting the death penalty deters anything.
So would this apply to statutory rapists as well?
The deterrant argument is rather flimsy. Its about revenge, eye for an eye, all that stuff.
The state just has to use that argument for people like yourself.
Death penalty doesnt deter anyone, but it certainly is fair. Now if only they could speed this up...
It deters me from becoming a criminal.
Whether or not it acts as a deterrent, there is high inverse statistical correlation (and deduced causation) between imprisonment and crime rate. Read: the more you put criminals in jail, the more crime goes down. (Empirical evidence: approximately 1/3 of the drop in the crime rate in the 90s can be attributed to imprisonment).
Citation: Levitt & Kuziemko. "An Empirical Analysis of Imprisoning Drug Offenders," Journal of Public Economics 88, nos 9-10 (2004) pp. 2043-66
Last edited by scott; 04-06-2006 at 10:20 PM.
Whom do Justice and the FBI work for?
==============
April 7, 2006
F.B.I. and Justice Dept. Are Faulted Over Child Predators on Web
By JOSHUA BROCKMAN
WASHINGTON, April 6 — Lawmakers from both parties continued on Thursday to question the commitment of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to halting the online exploitation of children. They also accused the agencies of failing to provide major witnesses for a Congressional investigation into the matter.
House members voiced their protest before and after testimony on the second day of hearings of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The tenor of the hearings, which focused on law enforcement efforts to capture online predators and rescue child victims, signaled that a showdown might be imminent.
"We keep trying to cooperate with the Justice Department and the F.B.I.," said Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the full committee.
Speaking directly to William W. Mercer, a United States attorney for Montana who testified at the hearings, Mr. Barton said: "You folks seem bound and determined to be as uncooperative as possible. I'm going to call the attorney general one more time, and we had better get the people we want to testify."
( ... just another head tactic to inflate the Executive to imperial, King-ly powers and to tell Congress to stuff it. )
Mr. Mercer testified that the caseload of the child exploitation section had increased 445 percent in the last four years, adding that federal prosecutions of child pornography and abuse cases increased to more than 1,500 cases last year from 344 in 1995.
"The attorney general himself," he said, "has made very clear his and the department's commitment to protecting children from sexual exploitation over the Internet." The urgency of the hearings, where witnesses from agencies including the Phoenix police, the Postal Inspection Service and the Department of Homeland Security testified, was underscored by the arrest on Tuesday of a Homeland Security spokesman, Brian J. Doyle, on charges of using the Internet to try to seduce a Florida detective posing as a teenager.
Officials on hand to testify, including James Plitt, chief of the Cyber Crimes Center for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, said arrests of federal employees had come as no surprise to them.
The hearing followed testimony on Tuesday by Justin Berry, a teenager who was molested by online predators. Kurt Eichenwald, a reporter for The New York Times, chronicled Mr. Berry's experience in an article in December that spurred the Congressional investigation.
Citing Mr. Berry's testimony that he had no faith in the Justice Department's efforts to act on information he had provided to them, Representative Edward Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee, asked, "Why has it taken so long for the department to act and rescue children in imminent danger of being molested?"
Mr. Whitfield also asked why certain witnesses, including Andrew Oosterbaan, chief of the department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity section, and Raul Roldan, chief of the F.B.I.'s Cyber Crimes section, who appeared on television news programs Thursday morning, did "not have time for us."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Has an executed criminal ever committed another crime?
Assuming people are indifferent about criminals being killed while in prison, the death penalty provides no incremental crime prevention benefits than incarcerating someone for life. As a deterrent, the death penalty is rather ineffective because it is not perceived as a credible enough of a threat. Plus, a good portion of the people who would knowingly put themselves in the position of being eligible for the death penalty are already at high risk to be killed anyway, so there is no incremental threat from the death penalty.
I propose a torture penalty as a real deterrant.
It WOULD work. Damned Cons ution....
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