Dying for rape

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/15/rape.ex…

Is anyone from Louisiana? A man has been sentenced to death for rape, the first time in 44 years that capital punishment has been ordered for a crime other than murder.

The victim in this case was his 8 year old step daughter. There was a ruling by the Supreme court about 30 years ago banning capital punishment for rape, but in this case, it was argued that this applied only to adult women.

Whether you are for the death penalty or not, is it right that raping a young girl carries the same sentence as murder (effectively encouraging the rapist to also become a murderer to get rid of the witness, as pointed out in the article)? Is it right that raping a young girl carries a harsher punishment than raping an adult woman (effectively assuming adult women can ‘deal with it’ better)?

Perhaps you disagree with my ‘effectively’s?

If you are for the death penalty, do you think it should be extended to those who rape children?

He should be raped to death.

Well, he is in prison.

Why do you think he should be killed?

Billy, once again your concern for humans and ability to think your responses through rationally amazes me. Great idea. /sarcasm

I’m with billy. Why show concern for humans who obviously have no concern for others?

And man, all of the comments on that site are rather stupid. No chance of parole with life in prison is more humane, costs the government less money, and is more tortuous for him. I don’t see why the death penalty should be used at all.

Bong, you seriously support raping somebody because he raped others? That eye for an eye crap is stupid. Life in prison with no chance of parole seems fine to me. If you rape him because he raped somebody else, it doesn’t help anybody, and you are just as bad as him.

The only reason we even have jails is to protect others from harmful criminals. Putting him in jail for life accomplishes that function. Anything more is just enacting pointless vengeance without any benefits.

Putting him in jail for life accomplishes that function.

Yeah, why don’t we let a rapist live the rest of his long life in a cell with his buddies? Hell, lets throw in some play time out in the yard! It’s not like the taxpayers are paying for his meals, room, cloths, bills; right?

Don’t prisoners have a code that they’ll kill any pedos in their compound?

By the way its billyfred you scum.

And man, all of the comments on that site are rather stupid. No chance of parole with life in prison is more humane, costs the government less money, and is more tortuous for him. I don’t see why the death penalty should be used at all.

How about shortening the time between sentencing and the actual punishment? (Why do we need to waste so much time with useless appeals). This saves the government much more money, seeing as they haven’t just added another person to free government-funded life support for 50 years…

Yeah, why don’t we let a rapist live the rest of his long life in a cell with his buddies? Hell, lets throw in some play time out in the yard! It’s not like the taxpayers are paying for his meals, room, cloths, bills; right?

Read the book Freakanomics. It costs something like 20,000 dollars more to put somebody on death row than it does to keep them in jail for life. So putting them on death row accomplishes far less.

How about shortening the time between sentencing and the actual punishment? (Why do we need to waste so much time with useless appeals). This saves the government much more money, seeing as they haven’t just added another person to free government-funded life support for 50 years…

How about we just kill anybody accused of any crime in a violent manner and get rid of that useless thing called “justice?”

Death row costs more money, the courts are overbooked, and the appeal system is there so that prisoners getting cruel and unusual punishment, such as this case, where he didn’t even kill somebody but has to lose his own life, etc. I don’t see any reasoning to why a death sentence is better for society than life in jail.

How about shortening the time between sentencing and the actual punishment? (Why do we need to waste so much time with useless appeals). This saves the government much more money, seeing as they haven’t just added another person to free government-funded life support for 50 years…

If you support the death penalty, then you are an accessory to the murder of every innocent person who is nonetheless sentenced to death. The reason why it takes almost as much money to kill someone as it does to lock them away for the rest of their lives is because death should never be easy.

Lets come to a agreement.

30 years in prison then death by rape.

(And the death part won’t cost much)

So instead of cruelly killing him immediatly in a barbaric and illegal fashion, you want to send him to 30 years in prison to be miserable and then cruelly kill him in a barbaric and illegal fashion?

Seriously, do you even think about what you say before you post it?

Yes. I compramised.

You made things worse for the prison inmate. And raping him to death is a bad idea no matter what.

I don’t think it is.

Personally I am against the death penalty for any crime for the simple reason that if you later find out that the convicted individual was innocent then there is nothing you can do and you have basically murdered someone for no reason. I know that life imprisonment doesnt exactly help a guy on the road to life but at least you can release them and compensate them in some ways for the miscarrige of justice. The legal system is not infalible and will always get things wrong now and then, so for me the death penalty is an unacceptable risk for any crime.

On your other point – Some people argue that children cope better with rape as they have less knowledge of what is actually happening, some argue that it is harder for the child to cope as they are more vunerable and more likely to be a virgin before the event. For me i see rape as rape, it doesnt matter how old or young you are, whether you are male or female or whether you know the person doing it or not, it’s still going to be horrific and its still going to scar you for life. I think you should get life in prison for any rape, but again this is all just my personal opinion.

As for the completely stupid idea of raping the man to death, billyfred have you ever met someone who has been through sexual abuse of any sort? Do you have any idea what happens to a person mentally when this happens? I know that it is in theory just ‘giving them a taste of their own medicine’ but it is not a fate i would wish on my worst enemy. How in this modern day and age is anyone so barbaric as to conceive of this as a possible solution?!

There may also be other points to consider, was the attacker mentally stable, do they need help rather than just punishment?

Also you guys missed out on the race factor in the article, 90% of those sentenced to death for rape have been black – is this a coincidence or a factor in the decision.

I think raping him to death would be a tricky situation, because it would have to be unwilling intercourse, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rape (definition 2), but what if he was never unwilling?

Hypothetical situation: You’re a guy hanging out with your girlfriend (or wife) and she leaves the room. She comes back a few minutes later, one thing leads to another, and you end up having sex. You are both of legal age. You think nothing of it. It’s the next day and all of the sudden she accuses you of rape. She takes you to court and your’e convicted hands down for a few reasons. When she left the room she took a couple shots (alcohol of your choice) so she was technically under the influence, and she didn’t legally consent. Even if she did verbally consent at the time, meaning you asked her directly whether or not she wanted to have sex, it doesn’t matter, because of the legal issues with the alcohol. bobo82 says you go to jail for life.

With that said, I don’t think he or anyone should be put to death, because of the same reasons bobo82 mentioned, despite overcrowded prisons. Although it is a horrible crime, it doesn’t warrant the death penalty.

bobo82 says you go to jail for life.

One of the things i pointed out was that the legal system was fallible. Firstly cases like the one you described – is that actually what happened? if they were convicted is there not more to the story? was she entirely consenting? if she is making the allegation in the first place perhaps there is a reason for doing so? Questions like that always need to be asked, rape is almost always a case of ‘my word against yours’ when the attacking party admits to having sexual intercourse with the victim but denies that it was rape. Cases where it appears to be a simple story of crying wolf are sometimes revealed to be more.

So, i agree that there is a grey area in the case of rape but the situations i was implying (ok i got on a bit of a rant and didn’t make it clear) were the ones where it was clearly an attack rather than a grey area. I fully agree with the implied fact that in this day and age you can’t even kiss someone if they are drunk for fear of getting taken to court and that it is a little ridiculous in some cases but there are always cases where someone really was raped whilst under the influence. I suppose the moral of that story is don’t get drunk to the point where you are not in control and on the other side of things if your intended gf/bf/fling really likes you then there is always tomorrow so wait until they are sober. (I’m not being pious here, I like most other people have been completely blotto on occasion :p)

EDIT: Actually thinking about it what would you rather have, someone incarcerated for life a false crime or a rapist walking the streets after 5 years in jail ready to reoffend? Neither situation is ideal but which way would you rather sway? Like i said there are other factors such as mental health and therapy in addition to incarceration to consider. No matter what the legal system choses to do some people will always get imprisoned for crimes they didnt commit and some will be left free when they should be in jail.

I personally don’t think capital punishment should be used. A life sentence in prison accomplishes the goal of removing him from society in a humane manner. Though, I do think that prisoners that are sentenced to a life in prison should be given the option for death at any time, just as the rest of us have.

Mastry, we don’t have the right to kill ourselves at any time. Any assisted suicide has to go to court and the person has to have a condition that is miserable, irreversable, and shows no potential for abuse (assist your fathers death to get the money). Suicide itself is against the law. So unless everybody else got the option, prisoners won’t.

Suicide itself is against the law

Which country are you in because it’s not against the law for most countries.

The United States.