Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has joined a coalition of 15 attorneys general supporting efforts to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, which barred states from imposing the death penalty in cases of child rape where the victim did not die.
In a letter sent last month to the Department of Justice and the White House General Counsel’s office, the coalition of attorneys general argues that Kennedy was wrongly decided and that the Constitution allows capital punishment for the most horrific crimes against children.
“As I've stated many times before, child rapists deserve the death penalty,” Murrill said. “The United States Supreme Court needs to reverse this egregiously wrong ruling.”
The multi-state letter emphasized that the Kennedy decision stripped states of a vital tool to punish and deter predators who commit the most extreme sexual assaults against children. It argued that the decision disregarded the profound harm inflicted on victims, equated their lifelong trauma with lesser crimes, and undermined the ability of states to protect their most vulnerable citizens.
The attorneys general stressed that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit the death penalty for child rape. The AGs urged the Supreme Court to recognize that the death penalty can be a constitutionally appropriate punishment in cases of child rape, just as it is for murder.
Murrill and her counterparts noted that since Kennedy, states have continued to enact legislation authorizing capital punishment for aggravated child rape, showing that there is no true national consensus against the practice and demonstrating efforts to enact child rape statutes that are distinguishable from the one that was struck down in Kennedy.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier led the coalition. In addition to Murrill, the other AGs who signed the letter are from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
