Vol. 72/No. 28      July 14, 2008

The decision overturned laws on the books in six states—Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas—that allow executions for such cases. Louisiana is the only state where two men faced execution on such convictions at the time of the decision. Both will have their sentences commuted to life without parole.

Capital punishment under these cases is cruel and unusual, the ruling stated. There is a distinction “between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand, and non-homicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other.”

However devastating the crime, “the death penalty is not proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” wrote Judge Anthony Kennedy in the decision. Kennedy said there is a national consensus against applying the death penalty on these crimes, demonstrated by the number of states in which it is currently not being used. Forty-four states prohibit the death penalty for any kind of rape.

While declining to expand the use of the death penalty to cases in which the victim’s life is not taken, the court maintained that it can continue to be used for “crimes against the state,” such as treason, espionage, and “terrorism.”

Both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates expressed their opposition to the decision. Republican Party candidate John McCain said it is “an assault on law enforcement’s efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime.”

Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama argued that the death penalty in these cases is “at least potentially applicable,” and does not violate the constitution if states apply it under “narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances.”

Both senators have been consistent supporters of the death penalty.

“The death penalty is a weapon of terror the ruling class and its government uses to remind working people what is in store for us when we fight back,” said Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate Róger Calero.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Manhattan (see article on page 3), Calero explained how the death penalty, whether by lethal injection or the electric chair or by the cops killing workers and youth in the streets with impunity, is aimed at instilling fear.

“The Supreme Court decision to reaffirm the use of the death penalty for so-called crimes against the state is part of the preparations the capitalist rulers are making now to use this weapon against trade unionists and others resisting the attacks on our standard of living and rights,” the socialist candidate added. “It should be abolished completely.”

Today there are more than 3,300 inmates on death row in the United States. Of those, 42 percent are Black.  
 
 
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