Unless I am wildly inaccurate (always a possibility), no one has been executed solely for the crime of child rape in my lifetime, and only two people are even on death row for child rape, both in Louisiana. As such, I find the outrage in certain quarters about today’s decision to be a little perplexing. Nothing really changed with the ruling today, but the usual suspects are up in arms. The Confederate Wanker warns us that we are about to see a surge in vigilante justice:
There is a macabre old urban legend that has floated around for years in which an exceedingly bad person—a wife-beater, a child-abuser, or other such societal dreg—is found perforated with bullets, and knowing local law enforcement officials note that the miscreant’s death was a serious suicide, where the deceased if found having shot himself in the head and/or back multiple times, in some variations even taking the time to reload an empty weapon and fire again.
Such stories, of course, are told with a knowing smile.
We find before us—and perhaps a bit beneath us—a Supreme Court of the United States that in this session has found more sympathy and more previously unknown rights for suspected terrorists and child rapists than it has for the average American.
Wouldn’t this already be taking place, as there already IS no death penalty for child rape in 49 of the fifty states? And how hard is all this vigilante justice, considering all the people convicted of child rape are incarcerated? Did I miss all the stories of lynch mobs breaking into super-max prisons to bring these child-rapists to actual “justice?”
Malkin, knickers in a full twist, finds perfidy in the media:
Anthony Kennedy and the leftists on the Supreme Court ruled this morning that what child rapist Patrick Kennedy did to his 8-year-old stepdaughter is a crime that should not be punishable by death.
The MSM will tiptoe around what child rapist Patrick Kennedy actually did.
She then goes on to quote details of the rape, presumably because we are not bright enough to figure out what happens when a man rapes his 8 year old stepdaughter. Then again, with the dim bulbs who read Malkin on a daily basis, this may be a safe assumption. Her apparent reasoning is that if only the media would go into more detail about the rape case, then we might be able to execute child rapists in Louisiana. Damned liberal media- that must be why we never heard about the lynch mobs!
I simply do not get it. Nothing has really changed, but to read the reactions you would think this monster had been set free . Some days the only reasonable explanation for the apparent bloodlust from some of these folks is that they really just like death.
demkat620
I think this push to include more people under the death penalty will only be sufficient if it includes people who disagree with the Usual Suspects.
Davebo
Perhaps she’s just trying to keep her readers from bailing on her site to surf for kiddie porn?
joshua
They really like death as long as someone else is doing the killing. Which is why they need the state to execute child-rapists, because if they ever have to become the vigilante protagonist in the “urban legend”, well, they don’t have the balls.
kid bitzer
they really like death?
nah. most have them have never come within a mile of actual death.
what they love is a certain thrill that they get from *fantasizing* about killing people.
pretending to be tough hombres. but they have no actual idea of what actual death is like.
it’s really just a domestic variation on their status as foreign policy chicken-hawks.
“yeah, we’re merciless vigilantes! avenging furies! woo!
well, somebody is. or somebody might be, anyhow.
and it sure turns me on to imagine it.”
confederate wanker indeed.
John S.
If only the Liberal MediaTM reported the details, like what kind of countertops Patrick Kennedy had…
Incertus
But I thought liberalism was the culture of death. That’s what Dinesh D’Souza said, right?
It has taken me a while, but I’ve become a member of the no death penalty ever brigade, such is my disdain for human life.
Liz
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/392710.html
Yes, there is vigilante action going on out there. This was just the most recent story to hit the news, at least the most recent one I saw. There may be others in other papers. I’ve read other accounts in the past. It was one of the reasons some were against the sex offender registry… you’re handing out these people’s addresses to any one who would like to know.
I was almost kidnapped when I was 7 years old. I would like nothing more than a brutal anesthesia-free spaying for anyone who harms a kid in this fashion. I could have been one of those kids. (Thank god for pointy toed cowgirl boots… one good shot to the nuts and I was dropped and fleeing to a neighbor’s house before he could stand upright.) The death penalty… I agree, would force a kid to relive the abuse over and over for each appeal, and would give abusers a lot less reason to let the kid live. Emotionally, it’s easy to say “String the bastard up.” We have to look past that.
Mr Furious
It’s just bullshit icing on the outrage cake that they get to hammer the word “Kennedy” repeatedly throughout this…
montysano
OT, but just in case ya’ll missed it: Chris Dodd gives a blistering speech on the FISA “compromise”. Now, if BO wants to up the rhetoric a bit, Dodd has provided some covering fire. This is how to play smart politics
Lavocat
Um: DUH!
They like vicariously experiencing the killing of others. There is something truly pathological about this in neocons.
Notorious P.A.T.
I don’t know, that Confederate Yankee sure looks like one tough hombre!!!!!
Martin
That’s not why she went through the details. She went through the details because it’s free wingnut porn. I don’t mean that in that the readers get off on the sex of it, rather they get off on the outrage they get from it.
Kossacks aren’t much different – but they get off on different things.
wingnuts to iraq
most are just jealous they didn’t get to rape an 8 year old.
Brachiator
The NYT story on the case provides the relevant background:
The outrage is an ironic reaction to the activities of the Innocence Project and related investigations which have saved people who it turns out were falsely convicted of murder. Here, outrage over heinous acts is supposed to trump evidence, justice and an increasing understanding that trials are sometimes monstrously unjust.
El Cid
Clearly, for the right wing the only just way to administer the death penalty is to apply it without charges on the basis of warrantless wiretapping, and if this isn’t done by any sort of law enforcement authority or military unit it should be done forthwith by properly self-motivated citizen punishers.
John Cole
Those are for people who have served their sentences. Certainly the confederate yankee is not suggesting we execute people so they will not be killed after they serve an otherwise more lenient sentence.
mark
I seem to have somewhere heard the phrase “some crimes are so heinous innocence is an insufficient defense.”
cleek
do they also want the death penalty for adult rape, too ? elderly rape? rape of invalids, the mentally ill or mentally handicapped ?
HyperIon
The IG reported that working for the Innocence Project was grounds for denial of a DOJ job interview. I’m mean: who among us does NOT hate innocence? sheesh.
Martin
SnarkyShark
Wanna make a wingnuts head explode? Its very simple.
Ask them “since you’re a republican, I guess your for the death penalty correct?” The will proudly respond yes. Ask them if they are for universal health care, and then throw in a couple of other questions about anything, say environmentalism or whatever. Of course they will say they are against health care.
Ask them if they are against it because they don’t trust the government to administer it. They will say yes.
Then ask them this-“So you are saying that you trust the same government that you dont trust to administer health care to to be absolutely correct when they administer the ultimate punishment? How can you be such an idiot?”
They usually lose the smirk and start in with the I hate you look.
Its quite amusing.
Martin
And I love how preview oftentimes looks nothing like what will actually get posted. Useful that.
Gerald Curl
There is an urban legend that certain bloggers, known for wildly stupid and inaccurate posts, will wake up to find their barbecue grill laying on its side in the backyard with damage running into the thousands of cents. The local police property destruction forensic team will knowingly smile and talk about windstorms seen in the area.
jenniebee
I don’t have any legal recourse or chance to defend myself or even know the charges against me if I’m thrown in jail? And I’m going to be put to death?
Huh. I honestly had no idea. Thank you Confederate Wanker for letting me know about that. I thought I was just stuck at work tonight pushing a code release, but truly, you have opened my eyes to the invisible unfairness of my plight.
Brachiator
OT – The right wing will soon be examining Obama’s iPod playlist for proof that he is an arrogant elitist pro-terrorist mole:
El Cid
Oooh, here’s a good one — do they favor vigilante justice for suspected date rape?
ThymeZone
Clearly, the idea of not executing child rapists is intended to protect Republicans, who make up the majority of such rapists, I’m sure.
That explains the SCOTUS decision. And, good for them.
jenniebee
I guess now we get to see if Obama wants to up the rhetoric then.
Zifnab
Sounds heard at Malkin website viewer websites across the nation.
*fap* *fap* *fap*
Yeah, I’m sure FOX will be bringing us dramatic renditions and stirring re-enactments of child rape scenarios for the next week or two. This will culminate in a bukake fest over the graven image of a falafel. The Malkinites and FOX Friends will then proceed to commiserate over how liberals are all pedophiles and perverts.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m for the Wrath Of God penalty. March ’em up to the top of the tallest prison building during a storm and handcuff ’em to a pole. If God wants ’em, he can take ’em.
Death penalty, not so much.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can you just imagine how badly Scalia had to flog his own back as he reviewed the evidence again and again while working on his dissent?
RSA
For what it’s worth, this is from a footnote on p. 9 of Alito’s dissent:
He’s not clear about what those numbers are, but let’s presume that they’re annual reports. Horrific statistics. If we haven’t seen vigilanteism by now, we’re not going to see a surge.
PeterJ
What’s the life expectancy of a child rapist in prison?
Xenos
It is the same old urge for human sacrifice, here finding modern expression. An unfortunate drive present in many humans, and something we have had to struggle with since the bronze age.
southpaw
Maybe if we proposed that warrantless wiretapping should be punished by lethal injection (or–failing that–vigilante machine gunning) we could convert some of these dufuses to the cause?
t jasper parnell
According to The Edge of the American West Obama is both old and new.
Tyrant King Porn Dragon
That’s exactly what he’s saying. CY’s concern is for the welfare of the vigilantes, who “see[] their system of justice fail due to inequities in the judicial process [and] will find justice on their own”, and shouldn’t be put in a position where they ‘have’ to become a lynch mob because Father Ted moved in down the block and made eyes at their little angel; he (probably rightly) believes that social order will break down if Wild West justice becomes commonplace, and thinks (probably wrongly) that the best way to prevent this is to have the state kill anyone a ‘moral’ society would want to kill (ie, murderers, rapists, homosexuals, Sandy Berger).
JGabriel
RSA, the key word in that quote is “reported”.
As in, lots of child abuse didn’t get reported prior to the woman’s movement taking off in the late 60’s / early 70’s.
.
Brachiator
And much of this has to be at the hands of parents, step-parents, relatives, siblings, foster parents, etc.
I don’t see even the most rabid law-and-order type seeking the death penalty against a father for committing abuse, along with his wife as an accomplice.
wasabi gasp
Lock one of those authoritards in a room long enough and they’ll start scrutinizing the mirror’s countertops.
JGabriel
Argh, “women’s movement” not “woman’s movement”.
.
lutton
>>they really just like death
They are the party of exponential revenge.
Dreggas
This I support for all convicted of any rape. They have chemical castration but that doesn’t go far enough IMO.
Dreggas
Their entire sentence until released. Watch some of the documentaries on prisons sometime. All sex-offenders, especially those who were convicted in cases involving children, are locked up in seperate “protective custody” areas of prisons so they are not harmed in gen-pop. They are guarded against being attacked and/or killed by other inmates though there have been cases where the inmates managed to “make it happen” and either beat, maim or kill the other convict.
RSA
Excellent observations, JGabriel and Brachiator. They make it even worse, though it’s hard to believe that’s possible.
Ninerdave
All this from the party that’s Pro Life.
Helena Montana
I have to say, as the mother of a (sadly, now grown and gone) child, I don’t have a problem with executing child rapists. Truth be known, I wouldn’t have a problem with hanging, drawing and quartering them.
BH-Buck
John, remember this post on SCHIP?
I’m surprised that Malkin is making such a fuss.
BH-Buck
The welfare of a child matters to them – as long as they don’t have to break a sweat, or open a wallet.
Ted
When I read that, I first saw “furries” and immediately was reminded of the dude who was harassing the WWII vet about Obama’s great uncle’s service record.
Thanks for that. :(
bootlegger
Every single bit of this is explained by the RECENT surge in reporting of such cases. Prior to the 1970’s there were no advocates for abused children or battered wives, the laws were poorly written and difficult to prosecute, children (some now adults who I know) were discouraged from reporting, and police and prosecutors often wanted to sweep it under the rug. What is worse is that Scalia knows this! Fucking asshole.
There has been no “surge” in child abuse and our best data suggests that since reporting and prosecution increases rates have gone way down.
Wilfred
Anyone remember the case of the boy who was raped by his karate instructor that happened in Louisiana years ago? They caught the guy and brought him back to NO airport. The boy’s father was waiting by a bank of pay phones when the guy was being marched through and shot the bastard in the head right in front of the tv cameras. I believe he was acquitted, too.
That’s justice.
hmd
Eh.
It’s all about the outrage, and the desire to have it recognized. “I’m totally outraged by this, and I won’t be satisfied unless the maximum possible penalty is invoked.” As long as the death penalty is conceived of as possible, nothing less will do.
Garrigus Carraig
John Geoghan called. He wants his life story back.
There’s apparently a video of his death on the interto0bz, which I did not click on.
Dennis - SGMM
I’d think that the parental bond was severed at the same time the abuse began.
The Other Steve
I’m curious. What do the wankers have to say about the man who had his conviction for murder overturned because part of the evidence against him was a statement by his girlfriend 2 weeks before she died saying “He threatened to kill me”.
That one was 6 to 3, and Scalia wrote for the majority stating the man had no opportunity to question the witness against him.
JGabriel
Confederate Yankee:
Cassel / Woo Debate:
A question for the wingnuts:
What happens if the president, deeming it necessary to torture a terror suspect, orders that the terrorist’s child be raped?
Does Bush, as president, have inhernet power to do that, or does he get the death penalty?
.
Regular Reader
One of the statistics that I think is woefully neglected with regard to this topic is that upwards of 90% of child sexual abuse is committed by family members. Despite our nation’s skewed obsession with “To Catch a Predator,” the clear majority of individuals facing death in these cases wouldn’t be unknown internet perverts, but “Grandpa,” “Uncle Ted,” or even “My Brother.”
Victims of sexual abuse are already subject to more than their share of mental anguish. Personally, I don’t like running the risk of them feeling they’re also responsible for the death of a family member, “monster” or not.
The Other Steve
Since the President did not physically act, he is not guilty.
However the person who committed the offense would get the death penalty by being thrown under a bus.
The Other Steve
I was just thinking of all the Republican candidates for office who are going to be executed.
Liberal Masochist
off thread – but on hardball chris matthews just said Obama when he meant to say Osama. i don’t have the link yet, but it was pretty obvious he did not mean it. The reference was to a tape bin laden released just before the 2004 election. I think he realizes what he did as he goes on. I guess when your business is 24 hour political coverage it fries your brain a bit…
The Other Steve
Here’s the story on the overturned Murder conviction.
Giles v California, dissented by justices Stevens, Breyer, and Kennedy.
Just Some Fuckhead
As an amateur chef who cut his finger pretty badly tonight while making a new recipe, I don’t have a problem with executing Food Network show hosts, especially the smarmy ones that like to make it seem so fucking easy at 8pm ET.
Martin
That would never happen.
cleek
ah, CY – such a bottomless pool of ridiculous hyperbole and mouth-breathing ignorance.
Zifnab
I’m not going to lie to you guys. I’ve always fantasized of finally catching the wasckly wabbit and eating him.
/Elmer Fudd
L. Ron Obama
God dammit Obama, you are really trying my patience this week.
dmbeaster
Not necessarily. What they do love is hate, and anything that lets them lather up.
SpotWeld
I am coming to the conclusion that the people who advocate vigilante justice are the ones who are able to convince themselves they were the “popular” kids in High School.
(I further suggest that right-wing pundits are all folks who never learned the difference between “laughing with” and “being laughed at” by the folks they hung out with.)
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Did you expect him to support the ruling? I couldn’t have been the only one to read the judgement and get flashbacks to Dukakis being asked about his wife getting raped.
Just Some Fuckhead
America luvs ’em a politician that signals a desire and willingness to kill other people. Yo yo, don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
AnneLaurie
Prior to the 1970’s there were no advocates for abused children or battered wives, the laws were poorly written and difficult to prosecute, children (some now adults who I know) were discouraged from reporting, and police and prosecutors often wanted to sweep it under the rug. What is worse is that Scalia knows this! Fucking asshole.
I was in college in the late 1970s, and remember some of the stories about trying to change those laws. There were actually cases in the news where “Biblical Family Values” offenders — child rapists and their lawyers — claimed that raping and sodomizing their children was just God-sanctioned “discipline” of wayward young people. And other cases where kids seem to have been killed by their “good Christian” fathers, stepfathers & teachers because these monsters believed that being known as someone who “accidentally” killed a “bad, disobedient, wild” child was less of a social stigma than being known as a prevert who liked to touch little pee-pees. I also remember at least one case reported (in mid-Michigan) where a judge ruled that a man whose wife ran away with the kids when she found out he was sexually abusing their young daughters didn’t have to pay child support, because despite the medical reports & the fact that the defendant was undergoing “counseling”, he hadn’t actually been convicted and she had no recourse under existing law to keep “his” kids away from him.
Of course, Reverend James Dobson — who is criticizing Obama’s ‘family values’ — is still a big-time public defender of beating little kids “in God’s name”. Dobson also believes that “Daddy” needs to show off his manly endowment on a regular basis unless he wants his young sons to grow up homosexual. IANAP (I am not a psychologist) but I believe the technical term for Rev. Dobson is “twisted”…
Oh, and that charming urban legend about the kindly old sheriff commenting on “the most determined case of suicide I ever saw”? First reported during “Reconstruction”, and mostly used in reference to Uppity Nigras (& Nigra-Lovers) getting their Just Desserts. As we feminists used to say back in the 1970s, rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power.
L. Ron Obama
No, I’m just bitching a little. I am aware of all election season traditions.
Hubris
Obama is consistent on this–in this debate with Keyes in 2004, he included some cases of “harm of children” within the list of scenarios where he supported the death penalty.
Just Some Fuckhead
Good one.
Laertes
I like politicians who are against the death penalty at all times and in all forms.
Obama has never been such a politician, and I never mistook him for one.
This isn’t even a tiny disappointment. I’m well aware that my absolutist views on capital punishment are a bit outside the mainstream.
Dennis - SGMM
It is said that Draco himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offenses, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.
GSD
Will Malkinistas advocate the death penalty for GOP operatives who fellate napping young college Republicans on political sleep overs?
Where’s the outrage?
-GSD
Dennis - SGMM
Didn’t you read all of those posts calling for Mark Foley to be executed?
Just Some Fuckhead
Twink parties are punishable by death now, too? Gulp.
Martin
Actually, they aren’t really outside the mainstream. In the minority, sure, but you’ve got ~40% of the US population there with you.
TenguPhule
What penalty does raping a Nation and Constitution entail?
Rome Again
The author who penned a defense of internment might like death? No, really? What was your first clue John? I’m sorry, but this doesn’t surprise me in the least.
liberal
Wilfred wrote,
Wasn’t Louisiana the same state where that guy shot dead the Japanese exchange student who came to his door (mistaken address) with a toy gun (was going to a Halloween party or something)?
IIRC he was acquitted (though he and his wife lost a civil lawsuit).
MH
Some days the only reasonable explanation for the apparent bloodlust from some of these folks is that they really just like death.
If the jackboot fits, wear it.
Paul L.
Call the ACLU, Rethugs are going to try to take away the reproductive rights of convicted sex offenders.
Hey Supreme Court, Since You Think Death Isn’t Proportional Punishment for Rape, How About Castration?
flywheel
In my lifetime, in Texas, and pre-1964 I am sure many were executed for rape. It was a capital offense. Of course, you generally got off if you killed your wife while she was in bed with another man! That’s Texas.
As for how child rapists are treated in prison, maybe you are familiar with the term “shorteyes”, which is the prison word for a child molester. Not surprising really, since a huge percentage of men in prison were sexually abused as children. That’s a convenient omission from most discussions, isn’t it?
And for Dreggas, the letter of the law is hardly ever practiced in prison, except for things like visitors, cigarettes, etc. If it has to do with a prisoner’s right to be allowed to live as a human being, then that’s another matter entirely. “Rules” are seldom followed by Administrators or Guards.
Isn’t it weird about the photos of children being raped by guards? You can’t actually look at them because they might be child porn.
Just some.. Kudos to you sir!
I believe that the Christian Right likes the death penalty because it hides the evidence. Think about it. Nearly every other human behavior besides killing is probed and investigated until there is some theory about why it occurs. Not murder. They might find out that a lot of these serial killers and such come from nice, strict, disciplinarian, and repressed households run by every day garden variety christian citizens with reputations to uphold.
There was a guy back in the ’80s, I believe, who killed his entire family, wife, kids, grandkids. He had already killed some people he had grudges against in town and waited for his family to come to a re-union at his home, then he killed them as they arrived. He was quoted as saying, “I got (or killed) everybody that ever hurt me.” He wouldn’t allow any appeals on his death penalty and was duly executed, taking his secret with him.
Every time you send someone to the death chamber, you lose a piece of information, too.
As far as the death penalty for child rape goes, a (real) life sentence pretty much assures that he will never get a chance to do it again. A murderer can kill others while in prison.
grendelkhan
The state has no interest in revenge.
I can’t believe how controversial that idea apparently is. The state must, through its policies, act in a rational manner. If there’s a reason other than vengeance (and its fig leaf “morality”), by all means, I’d like to hear it. But I don’t think there is.
Anyone who’s going to enter this debate needs to repeat it to themselves in front of a mirror a few times first: The state has no interest in revenge.
flywheel
I would say we forfeit our “rights” to revenge in order to have a stable society.
Then, supposedly, the state administers “justice” to the supposed miscreants, through trial by a jury of his “peers”, then if convicted, judged by an uninterested judge.
I see I’m using lots of quotes. Just means these seem to be open to interpretation.
I always try to remember that both Doctors and Lawyers refer to their business as a “practice”.
fourmorewars
Regarding the ‘they really just like death’ remark, I look for a simpler explanation for their behavior, even if it’s more ‘benign,’ not because I like them or anything, I just think that the most effective pushback can only come from focussing on the best reading of their real motivations.
So, I’d just stick with, ‘something they think they can score points with.’ Thus you can avoid putting off the persuadables out there who can’t get past the ‘they’re only bloodthirsty because he deserves to die!’ argument, but who CAN be made to see the demagoguery, even if used in an argument they agree with.
Neo
This begs the question ..
What do Al Gore and raped children have in common ?
Answer