Background
Patrick O. Kennedy, a man from suburban New Orleans, Louisiana, was sentenced to death after being convicted of raping his eight-year-old stepdaughter. The rape was uncommonly brutal: it tore the victim's perineum "from her vaginal opening to her anal opening. tore her vagina on the interior such that it separated partially from her cervix and allowed her rectum to protrude into her vagina. Invasive emergency surgery was required to repair these injuries.". Kennedy maintained that the battery was committed by two neighborhood boys, and refused to plead guilty when a deal was offered to spare him from a death sentence. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced under a 1995 Louisiana law that allows the death penalty for the rape of a child under the age of 12.
On appeal, Kennedy challenged the constitutionality of executing a person solely for child rape, and the Louisiana Supreme Court rejected the challenge on the grounds that the death penalty was not too harsh for such a heinous offense. The court distinguished the U.S. Supreme Court's plurality decision in Coker v. Georgia (1977), concluding that Coker's rejection of death as punishment for rape of an adult woman did not apply when the victim was a child. Rather, the Louisiana Supreme Court applied a balancing test set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in more recent death penalty cases, Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons, first examining whether there is a national consensus on the punishment and then considering whether the court would find the punishment excessive. The Louisiana Supreme Court concluded that the adoption of similar laws in five other states, coupled with the unique vulnerability of children, satisfied Atkins and Roper.
Kennedy was one of two men in the country under sentence of death for a crime other than murder; the other, Richard L. Davis, had been sentenced under the same Louisiana law. Kennedy sought direct review of the Louisiana Supreme Court's decision in the Supreme Court of the United States, which agreed to hear the case in January 2008.
Read more about this topic: Kennedy V. Louisiana
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