Anthony Kennedy - Supreme Court Tenure - Jurisprudence - Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment

With the Court's majority in Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons, Kennedy agreed that the execution of the mentally ill and those under 18 at the time of the crime was unconstitutional. In Kansas v. Marsh, however, he declined to join the dissent, which questioned the overall "soundness" of the existing capital punishment system.

In 2008, Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana. The opinion, joined by the court's four more liberal justices, held that "he Eighth Amendment bars Louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death." The opinion went on to state, "The court concludes that there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder, on the one hand, and non-homicide crimes against individuals, even including child rape, on the other. The latter crimes may be devastating in their harm, as here, but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, they cannot compare to murder in their severity and irrevocability." The opinion concluded that in cases of crimes against individuals, "the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim's life was not taken."