Kennedy Vs Louisiana Essay

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Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008)

The Eighth Amendment bans “cruel and unusual punishment”, but does not state that the death penalty is unconstitutional, rather there is a limit on when death penalty can be used. The limit can determined by the Supreme Court of United States. The case of Kennedy v. Louisiana analyzes whether an individual can be receive the death penalty as a form of punishment for a non-homicide crime—the rape of a child. In Kennedy, the Supreme Court return to the preceding and the expansion of its decision in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977) and as well, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). March 2, 1998 in Louisiana, Patrick Kennedy called 911 and allegedly reported that two boys in his neighborhood raped his eight year old step-daughter. He claimed that his step-daughter was in the garage when the boys dragged her into the yard, raped her in the grass, and rode off on a blue ten-speed bicycle. The police responded and found Kennedy’s step-daughter in her bedroom wrapped in a bloody blanket. Where Kennedy stated he that provided assistance for her by carrying her into the house, washed her in the bathroom and then placed her in bed while he called the police.
The police investigated the event thoroughly and evidence …show more content…
The majority overturned the original decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court citing that “a death sentence for one who raped but did not kill a child, and who did not intend to assist another in killing the child, is unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments”. From the precedent Coker, the majority noted the two prongs that determined how constitutional capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment involves: the object evidence of a national consensus of the death penalty and the degree of the crime and the Court’s independent judgment of the purpose of the Eighth Amendment’s principle of
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