steveonet

Legislator suggests making child sodomy a crime punishable by death.

ATLANTA - People convicted of sodomizing children in Georgia could face the death penalty under a bill introduced Wednesday by a freshman Republican legislator.

If approved, the measure by Rep. Timothy Bearden of Villa Rica would make Georgia the second state to consider child sodomy a crime punishable by death. Louisiana is the only state where child sodomizers can be put to death now, although it's never been carried out there.

A Georgia law banning sodomy among consenting adults was overturned by the state Supreme Court in 1998. It is still a crime to commit sodomy with a child under age 10; Bearden's bill would raise that to age 12.

The lawmaker said he was inspired to write the bill because he once worked in law enforcement and wanted to increase penalties for crimes against children.

"Seeing the victims and seeing the predators that commit this crime, that's what I was thinking about on this," he said.

Current law calls for people convicted of aggravated sodomy - forcible sodomy - to serve 10 years to 30 years in prison. Bearden's bill would add a caveat to that sentence, calling for sodomizers to receive life in prison or the death penalty if the victim is less than 12 years old.

Georgia currently has only four capital crimes: murder, kidnapping with bodily injury or ransom where the victim dies, aircraft hijacking and treason.

In Louisiana, state legislators voted in 1995 to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the rape of a child under 12. That law is controversial, and no child rapists have been put to death, said law professor Stuart Green of Louisiana State University.

First, Green said, making child rape or sodomy a capital crime could create an incentive for child rapists to kill their victims, the best witnesses against them. Also, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled (in a Georgia case) that rape cannot be a capital crime, although that ruling applies only to the rape of adults.

Louisiana's Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for child rape, but questions over the law's validity have lingered, Green said.

"It's been controversial since the beginning," he said. "The controversy probably explains why it's never been applied."

The Louisiana law was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

The Georgia sodomy bill now heads to the House Judiciary Committee, of which Bearden is a member.

There were no co-signers on his measure, and the odds are traditionally long for substantive bills proposed by freshmen lawmakers. In a sign Bearden isn't afraid of throwing out long-shot proposals, he also introduced a bill allowing the revival of the Confederate battle emblem on the state flag, something leaders from both parties say won't be considered.

ON THE NET

Read House Bill 13: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2...ltext/hb13.htm


I for one, am all for this...I'm not a parent....and I'm not particularly an advocate of the death penalty in so many words...but I DO believe that anyone that would harm a child should get what they got coming to them...

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Dingo2879

Wow, I wasn't aware that this law was already in place in Louisiana... I'm curious to see how much, if any press this receives. I hope every state that still has a death penalty considers putting child molestation as a offense punishable by death.

Mephisto2

I don't support the death penalty for anything.

Mr Mephisto

steveonet

Well, generally speaking, I don't believe that the death penalty should be used as MUCH as it is. In that aspect of it, i'm not truly a "supporter". I believe our prisons are far too overcrowded as they are, and the "death penalty'' as it stands is just an excuse for the prisoners to waste taxpayers money for a longer period of time. I DO however believe, for various reasons that there ARE some instances where someone deserves to die...and if you're hard up enough for some kind of sexual satisfaction, that you have to do that to a CHILD.....then you'll get what's coming to you.....be it by death penalty or not. It may not be a sterile needle, but in a lot of prisons in the world, people who do cruel and unusual things to children generally dont live very long anyway, even if they're NOT on death row.

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SecretMethod70

Took the words right out of my mouth.

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arch13

Steve, thank you for the interesting articale and your comments after said articale. In the future though, please don't use that color. Using the QUOTE tags will be quite sufficient to visually seperate the content in your post.. Just put [ ] around the word quote, the [/ ] around the second word quote at the end of what you want to appear as quoted.

as for the content,

Why bother? As stated in the articale, it would give incentive to kill the vicitims. As it is already, child molestor's have a life expectancy on the inside of less than 12 months. Not even serial killers want to be in a cell with a child molestor. Most are killed quickly after sentancing by fellow inmates.

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StanT

Chid rapists are among the lowest form of scum, but too many people have been released from death row, based on DNA evidence, for me to be comfortable with the death penalty. Locking them up for life gives society and science a chance to correct a mistake.

Mephisto2

Is this true? Do you have a reference for this?

I would be very surprised if this was the case.


Mr Mephisto

arch13

Once upon a time My father did criminal law, now he does banking law. Most of his freinds from when he was a prosocuter still come and hang around the house when my parents invite freinds over for wine and trivial pursuit. On more than one occasion, the criminal prosocuters in the group have started speaking about how quickly child molesters are killed behind bars.
They are not the only place I have heard this either. Obviously I am speaking about the United States here, but I have no reason to think that other countries are different. I'll google and see if I can't come up with some empirical evidence for ya.

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JumpinJesus

I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, either. I think it's safe to say, though, that someone convicted and imprisoned for child molestation will most definitely face some severe form of punishment by his fellow inmates.

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daswig

This is no longer even remotely true, unless it's a very high profile case like Dahmer. It's fairly common to segregate criminals of this type away from the general population. And all you need to do is look at the various state sex offender registries to see that there are indeed a lot of convicted child molesters that have been released back into society.

daswig

I'm thinking that for child molesters, the DNA evidence will favor the State's case. If there's DNA evidence conclusively showing that the person in question is guilty, I'm all for frying them.

gondath

I don't think child molestation is worse than any other sexual crime, or even most crimes for that matter. They'd better be looking to apply the death penalty for more than just this. I agree that it would add incentive to kill the victim.

daswig

The problem isn't overuse of the Death Penalty, it's gross underuse, coupled with far too long between sentencing and carrying out the execution.

Rekna

I'm at odds with this. I hate scum and I wish it could be removed from this planet. On the other hand we as people should not judge others. Keeping someone in a prison for their lifetime is way to expensive, a bullet is very cheap. Perhaps instead we should put people who do stuff like this into forced labor where the money they make is either given to a victems fund or used to better the nation somehow (after costs of keeping them in prison is paid for). Of course we can always give them the option to die if that is what they want.

Mephisto2

This I agree with (My God! I agree with Daswig!!). I'm led to believe that most sexual criminals are segregated for their own safety.

This I don't agree with (Ahh.. that's better! ). I just don't support the death penalty on moral grounds.


Mr Mephisto

flstf

I don't know. When I lived in Washington state several years ago there was a widely publicized case there in a town called Wenatchee where about 40 people were falsly accused of child molestation and about 28 of them were convicted. Most of these people were very poor with low IQs.

The accusations were made by a very sick policeman and members of child protective services. I believe that most or all of their convictions have been overturned by now but many spent years in prison until it got straightened out. At least I think most are free by now.

The problem with child molestation is that we all get so upset upon hearing about it. Unfortunately there are some sick people in positions of authority who from time to time find it occuring everywhere they look. I don't know what their motives are, perhaps they were molested as a child themselves or something.

I don't trust the police and especially the prosecutors enough to send anyone to death nowadays. Unfortunately DNA evidence can be planted. I think most are trying to get the guilty off the streets but I believe many defendants are railroaded especially those with no resources.

I remember watching on one of the news shows a while back about how some prisoners on death row were being released because of the new DNA testing. A Texas judge said in an interview that she wanted all the old rape kits destroyed because too many were being set free. She said they were already convicted by a jury of their peers and their appeals had been used up and besides there may have been co-ejaculators.

I have never been arrested for anything and with people like that in the system I hope I never am.

OFKU0

Genital castration. Maybe shock therapy but then they would pee themselves and some poor shlub would have to clean it up.

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StanT

Sometimes DNA indicates guilt, sometimes it indicates innocence. In a lot of cases it isn't applicable or is contaminated. Advances in technology have proven dozens of death row inmates innocent. While I'd personally pull the lever to fry Chuck Manson, I don't think you can write a perfect law that absolutely prevents any chance of an innocent person being condemned to death. Nothing short of perfection is acceptable when applying the death penalty.

daswig

Sexual assault, be it against adults or children, isn't about sexual gratification. It's about power. Castration is ineffective: They just substitute other things for their own genitals. The reason they're doing what they do is to see the fear and hear the scream.

daswig

The fact that you agree with something I said makes me wonder if I'm wrong. I'll ask somebody from DoC tomorrow at work, just to make sure.

"If you're fer it, then I'm agin it."

daswig

Personally, I endorse the encouragement of life-shortening vices for people in prison. We confiscate all these drugs year after year....we ought to distribute the really pure stuff to the inmates in large quantities. If they overdose, hey, they're the ones who took it...

FoolThemAll

Another vote right here for "under absolutely no circumstances".

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Schwan

I've heard before about the issue of prison inamtes killing child molesters, and that it was, for a time, a normal thing around the world. Also, there was a similar issue with women charged with killing their children, who would often be abused or killed by fellow inmates while serving their jail terms. What I don't understand is how prison inmates can claim to have a moral right to judge and punish other prison inmates. It's like that pot & kettle thing.

Bill O'Rights

The problem is that once investigators "like" someone for a crime they will often move heaven and earth to prove their suspicions. Evidence that doesn't fall in line with the investigation is overlooked, and more credence is placed on circumstantial evidence than would otherwise be warranted. It becomes more of a How to prove that Suspect "A" did the crime, as opposed to finding out who actually did the deed.
I saw the same thing. It was this, along with a Texas (I'm almost positive it was Texas, but not 100%) Forensic Patholigist that was intentionaly tampering with evidence to obtain desired results. No fewer than 20 innocent men were released from Death Row, based on a re-examination of the evidence that resulted in thier conviction. It was these cases that turned me, a diehard death penalty supporter, 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

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kutulu

Well said.

steveonet

I'm not sure there'd BE a reference for this....short of personal experience or first hand knowledge, but it's a well known unpublished fact that if you go to prison for something done to a child....you become the bait real quick...

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Fourtyrulz

Actually chemical castration for sex offenders has proved to be quite the opposite: (from http://www.csun.edu/~psy453/crimes_y.htm )
Personally I am for the death penality in extreme cases. If you have proven yourself unfit to live in society by means of killing people around you, I'm not going to pay for your 3 meals a day for 60+ years (which usually happens anyway due to legal entanglements ). I do agree with Meph and some others that the death penalty is used far too liberally, especially in cases of child molestation. Even in my relatively calm homestate of Iowa we get cases of molestation that are eventually recognized as unfounded slanderous attacks (especially on teachers), and it absolutely ruins the accused persons life. Take that one step further where you would be putting a perfectly innocent persons life in the hands of a lying "victim", the only outcome I can see is negative.

I think Hollywood and the media have done a fairly good job establishing this myth, but until any of us actually find stats ( ) we'd just be speculating.

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Willravel

I couldn't agree more. Well played. Killing people as puinishment for killing someone. That's one of the great hypocracies of our time. I will never support the taking of life for any reason.

I say castration and a mental institution would be more likely to help these people. Killing someone won't help them learn.

jonjon42

I don't support the death penalty either. no matter the case. The system is imperfect and it should not be deciding something as final as ending a persons life.

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Coppertop

If sodomizing a child is to be punishable by death then all forms of rape should be as well. Otherwise this places more value on the life (victimization?) of a child than any other member of our society.

FoolThemAll

A man is threatening the lives of 100 innocent people intentionally and unjustifiably. The only way to stop the deaths of those people is to kill this man.

You wouldn't?

I would.

And I say this as someone who believes that the death penalty is, without exception, murder.

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james t kirk

Really.

You might think differently if you were wrongly convicted of killing someone and were sentenced to death.

If the system were 100 % fool proof, I might almost acknowledge your arguement, but it's not.

I can think of 4 men in Canada that were convicted of murder and now it turns out they were innocent.

1. David Milgarde (spent 25 years in jail, turns out he's innocent.)

2. Donald Marshall

3. Guy Paul Morin (convicted of killing 9 year old Christine Jessop. Turns out the cops framed him, hid evidence that cleared him, and in the words of one astute juror, "yeah, I knew he did it when he didn't make eye contact when he testified")

4. Stephen Truscot (at age 14 was sentenced to hang for killing 12 year old Lynne Harper. Has been fighting to clear his name for 40 some odd years. I think he spent 15 years in prison. Turns out the cops framed him too.)


Now there's 4 that I can think of without even so much as a google search.

Mephisto2

FoolThemAll,

That's a common philosophical question. And one that's not really useful except outside the classroom.

The question is, do we support the death penalty for child sodomy. Not child oral rape, not child vaginal rape, not child sexual abuse, not child prostitution, but child sodomy. Despite the obvious and ridiculous indiscrepancies inherent in the question, I personally do not support the death penalty for any crime.

I think it's dangerous. I think it's wrong. I think it's expensive. I think it doesn't act as a deterent (indeed, it actually encourages murder). And I think it's hypocritical.

The question of whether I would take one life to save another is a philosophical one; one that 99.99+% of us will never have to address.

Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

Prepare yourself for a smart-ass comment about the Canadian justice system...

Mr Mephisto

uncle_el

my sentiments as well.

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dy156

I had sorta' overdosed on the politics board up until the election, but am slowly starting to read it again.

This is an interesting point, but it should be approached from a couple of different angles.
During the Kobe Bryant trial there was some talk about our nation's rape laws and how they had become out of whack because politicians can "get tough on crime" by increasing sentences, and could increase sentences for rape to appeal to women voters. In my opinion, it has reached absurdity when you can get longer in prison for stabbing them with a penis than you would get for stabbing them with a knife. In that sense, the death penalty for sodomy seems pretty harsh, too.

From the other side, I'll tell you the story of a kid in my wife's third grade classroom in one of her first years of teaching. The school counselor had a meeting with her before he came into her class during the middle of the year. He started school there after being taken away and living with new foster parents. His ass no longer worked, because he had been abused so much. That sounds crude, but it's accurate. I get upset just writing about it. The kid had accidents (alot) and eventually started wearing a modified diaper. Whenever I would hear about it, it made me really want to kill the man that had done this.

Well, my original intention was to then talk about how if we value life, then the taking of a life as punishment for anything less than the taking of another life does not make sense. But after thinking about that kid, unless some doctor somewhere can do asshole transplants, his life is pretty much over. Can you imagine? Maybe they should be killed.

Well, no, because as of right now it costs the state more to execute someone than it does to just keep them locked up until they die.

Hell, I don't know anymore.

Zeld2.0

People's ideas of life change quick when they are on the wrong side of things...

FoolThemAll

99.99+%? I'd certainly acknowledge that it's an uncommon occurence, but that percentage doesn't strike me as realistic.

Forget about citizens who find themselves in that unlikely situation; what about cops or those in the armed forces? These are people for which the possibility of lethal defense is right there in the job description. Such people need to be willing to defend with lethal force in case the situation arises. And that situation is no longer a mere classroom exercise, but instead a real-life possibility.

And then those of us that fit into the "99.99+%" still have to address whether we wish to support professions that swear to kill when necessary.

So actually, I find the hypothetical quite useful. It's an extreme example meant to test whether one would accept more normal instances of killing in others' defense.

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Mephisto2

I maintain my assertion.

If we assume the population of the world is approximately 6,000,000,000, then my formula would equate to 6,000,000 people being put in that situation during their lifetime.

Six million people.

Do you honestly believe that six million people have been put in a situation where, if they did not kill someone, another person would die?

I don't.


Self defence was not the issue raised. Pre-emptive action was. And I don't believe 6,000,000 soldiers, or policemen and women, have had to kill someone to prevent another death.

Maybe they've had to kill in self-defence. Maybe they killed in war. But not in the circumstances your example implied.

Whilst I'm a pacifist, I do support and accept the need for armed forces. Indeed, I also support armed conflict in certain circumstances (quite a bit more broadly than many may think due to my "reputation" here as a liberal).

See above.

Well, accepting it and performing it are two different things. The hypothetical question is indeed useful as a I said; in a philosophical way and in the classroom. But it's not a questoin 99.99% of us (or "most of us" if you prefer) need to ask ourselves on a daily or intermittent basis.

Interesting discussion.

Mr Mephisto