Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty For Rape Convicts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_rdp

In other words, not only were the Founding Fathers who executed people for over 200 years before the death of the Republic in 1913 "cruel and unusual" but feel free to go around raping babies.

 

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Cruel I get, but 'unusual' ? lol

 

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its a jurisdictional way of getting out of trouble with the law, name it obstructively so that anyone who dares to sue will get a fist in their face.

 

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The United States used to execute people for all sorts of reasons, in cruel and unusual ways. I don't see how someone could feel this was a judgement on the founders.

Also, "death of the republic in 1913", what the hell is that about?

It's also almost unnecessary to point out that rape is still illegal.

 

The people who wrote the Constitution didn't think execution was cruel and unusual which is why they executed people for over 300 years.

If you don't know you probably don't have to work for a living.

Ooh it's "illegal." That will really act as a deterrent when there is no punishment...

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That's when the 16th ammendment was passed which authorized the federal government to impose an income tax which had previously been found to violate the constitution.

This gave the federal government the money it needed to grow into the monstrosity it is now.

 

You mean the country you all are supposed to be so proud of? Your precious military could not exist on volunteers and donations.

Capital punishment has never been a deterrent. This isn't a judgement on capital punishment, only it use for a specific crime in which no one has died.

 

Unfortunately for you it does.

What would you call it? An encouragement?

 

How many volunteers would we get if we could not pay them?

Criminals, and rapists don't give a shit about punishment. They don't plan to be caught.

 

It's not about deterring. It's about punishment. If it was up to the victims' parents and not the state, and nobody watching, the parents would disembowel the rapist, decapitate and mutilate his body... very slowly. What's cruel and unusual is to not execute these bastards.

"Cruel and Unusual" suggests the means. The death penalty itself is fine. So for humanism's sake, don't burn them at the stake. Just inject them with a bunch of heroin so they pass out in a pleasant stupor and never wake up. That's pretty kind, and the offender is removed permanently from society.

 

Be careful about how you site the Founding Fathers. Some of them owned slaves, none of them believed that women should be treated with any sense of equality, believed that children were legally the property of their parents and had no trouble executing people for horse theft.

So, no, I don't think we should consider what the Founding Fathers would think about our society. They are very different entities separated by more than 200 years.

~String

 

We progress as a society. If we used the standards of 200 years ago as fixed, we would still have slaves and pay bounties on indian scalps.

 

Yes, and we should get rid of voting rights for women and child labor laws as well. I mean, let's be real Spidergoat: the founders knew best!

~String

 

Superstring, that's all fine and dandy, but what do you actually think about the issue at hand?

 

We aren't a nation of founders, they weren't kings, we are a nation of people. Their values reflected the times. Anyway, I don't believe in the death penalty for anything.

 

The law should mean what the person/persons who wrote it intended. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of writing it down! We have a process to amend the constitution, that's the way changes should be made. Not by nine judges deciding whatever the fuck they want.

Yes, they are of a different age. But they were still great men the likes of which we were damned lucky to find when we needed them. Compared to the spineless weasels we have running our government now, they were veritable gods! So, yes, I still think we should consider what they had to say and apply it to current events.

 

There are slaves in Africa to this day and noone says a word about it. In fact, we send them billions of dollars so they can buy more slaves.

Pfff. Abigail Adams wasn't treated as an equal? ROFL. The Founding Fathers were all slaves to their wives. See Lysistrata by Aristophanes.

Better than being the property of the State.

Nor would I.

 

The "cruel" part may be fixed, more or less. The "unusual" part is obviously relative to the society in place. It was written carefully, we may presume.

In years to come, capital punishment may become unusual for even more crimes than the horse theft it no longer seems to befit.

The tyranny (if any) is in imposing a controversial, uncertain, national standard of "usual" on Louisiana.

But the basic principle is strictly Constitutional.

 

um. A punishment is supposed to deter. That was the point to get people not to do it.

 

I thought conservatives don't want the "nanny" state to do everything for them. If you want justice when someone rapes your daughter, you know what to do, go get the fucker yo' damn self.