Kennedy V. Louisiana - U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court

In seeking certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford Law School professor appealing on behalf of Kennedy, argued that five states do not constitute a "national consensus" for the purposes of Eighth Amendment analysis, that Coker v. Georgia should apply to all rapes regardless of the age of the victim, and that the law was unfair in its application, singling out black child rapists for death at a significantly higher rate than whites. Certiorari to the defendant was granted on January 4, 2008.

The case pitted the Eighth Amendment definition of "cruel and unusual punishment" over states' rights as defined in the Tenth Amendment, with the issue being whether states may constitutionally impose the death penalty for any crime other than murder as a principle of a state's right to impose punishment as it saw fit, under the Tenth Amendment, and, in particular, whether a death sentence is a disproportionate penalty, under the Eighth Amendment, for raping a child. No person has been executed in the United States for rape since 1964.

Louisiana Assistant District Attorney Juliet L. Clark argued for the State of Louisiana and Texas Solicitor General R. Ted Cruz argued for the State of Texas and other amicus curiae states.