6/25    Justice Kennedy is a waste of skin.  His opinion today that child rape
        can never be punished by the death penalty is just more proof of that.
        The particular details of the case are heinous.
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/5v23a9
        \_ Nice troll you got there, come here often?
        \_ While I understand the desire to take the perp out back and shoot
           him (believe me, I'd load the gun), preferably after the son of a
           bitch is repeatedly raped by a rabid hyena, the death penalty is
           the ultimate punishment available to the state. In designing a
           system that recognizes that quality, we have to set standards
           appropriate to the severity of the punishment; life for life is
           one of the clearest criteria we can set for this. To make exceptions
           even in heinous, horrible, horrific cases like this is to invite
           instability. If we apply death penalty in this case, why not in
           the case of adult rape? Where do we then re-draw the line?
           Kennedy's opinions in this case reveal a streak of strict
           constitutionalism such as we would expect to see from so-called
           strict constitutionalists like Scalia.
                \_ Originalist
           \_ "Proportionality" has nothing to do with curel and unusual.
              You're making a legislative argument, not a judicial one.
              Besides, I thought you lefties hated "slippery slope" arguments. -op
              Besides, I thought you lefties hated "slippery slope" arguments.
              -op
           \_ At 9:18 a.m. on March 2, 1998, petitioner called 911 to report
              that his stepdaughter, referred to here as L. H., had been raped.
                He told the 911 operator that L. H. had been in the garage
              while he readied his son for school. Upon hearing loud screaming,
              petitioner said, he ran outside and found L. H. in the side yard.
              Two neighborhood boys, petitioner told the operator, had dragged
              L. H. from the garage to the yard, pushed her down, and raped
              her. Petitioner claimed he saw one of the boys riding away on a
              blue 10-speed bicycle.
                When police arrived at petitioner.s home between 9:20 and 9:30
              a.m., they found L. H. on her bed, wearing a T-shirt and wrapped
              in a bloody blanket. She was bleeding profusely from the vaginal
              area. Petitioner told police he had carried her from the yard to
              the bathtub and then to the bed. Consistent with this
              explanation, police found a thin line of blood drops in the
              garage on the way to the house and then up the stairs.  Once in
              the bedroom, petitioner had used a basin of water and a cloth to
              wipe blood from the victim. This later prevented medical
              personnel from collecting a reliable DNA sample.
                L. H. was transported to the Children.s Hospital. An expert in
              pediatric forensic medicine testified that L. H..s injuries were
              the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four
              years of practice. A laceration to the left wall of the vagina
              had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her
              rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire
              perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The
              injuries required emergency surgery.
              \_ See the part where I agree with you that the guy oughta be
                 shot, right after being raped by rabid hyenas. Still not a
                 basis for a legal system.
                 \_ See, the revenge raping isn't.  Execution is.
                    \_ How do you codify it? Where do you draw the line?
                       \_ That's what legisaltors do, not judges.  See, you
                          draw the line where legislators draw the line.
                          \_ Actually, the constitution did that, where it
                             talks about cruel and unusual punishment.
                             \_ Ah, so you're an idiot with circular reasoning.
                                Go stick your head in a pig.
                                \_ And you obviously have no opinion that you
                                   didn't get from Rush. Goodbye, dittohead.
                                   \_ Uh, I don't listen to Limbaugh.  You want
                                      to try again?
                                      \_ I should bother... why?