Kennedy v. Louisiana, Case Study Example

This case was tried in the United States Supreme Court in 2008, and the final ruling was established on June 25, 2008.  Patrick Kennedy sought a civil lawsuit against the state of Louisiana to overturn the previous death sentence that had been ruled against him.  Patrick Kennedy was convicted in the Louisiana District Court for the crime of child rape against his eight-year-old stepdaughter.  The state’s constitution validated that the district attorney could seek the death penalty in such cases, upon which the judge and jury awarded Kennedy with the death sentence for his conviction.  Ultimately, this ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court in order to raise the question of the constitutionality for the state’s conviction against Kennedy.  Most importantly, the Eighth Amendment became the key constitutional amendment in question for this case.  This amendment is included in the Bill of Rights and it directly states that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (Eighth Amendment, 2006).  In other words, Kennedy’s attorneys believed that the government did not have the constitutional right to uphold a death penalty conviction as it fell under the definition of “cruel and unusual punishments.”  However, before being heard in the U.S. Supreme Court, Kennedy was originally tried in the District Court and in the Louisiana Supreme Court.

This case was quite different from a typical child rape case.  Although there was no disputing that Patrick Kennedy had in fact raped his stepdaughter, he had not killed the girl nor did he have the intention of killing her.  This was the main argument that his attorneys used to validate that the Eighth Amendment protected him from following a death penalty conviction.  The attorneys believed that murder, or the intention to murder would place Kennedy under different criteria for the extent of the conviction; however, Kennedy’s actions were not quite as severe.  The severity of his actions became a key argument for Kennedy’s attorneys in the case because they believed that it was the non-severity of his actions that made the death penalty conviction “cruel and unusual”.  In order to effectively sway the justice’s opinions, it was crucial for his attorneys to prove that Kennedy has no intention of killing the stepdaughter and was only interested in the less-severe crime of child rape.  The court’s ultimate decision would have been the difference between death and serving time in prison.

Kennedy initially followed the appeal process and took his appeal to the state Supreme Court where the initial decision was upheld due to landmark cases where five other states have allowed for the death penalty to be used in relation to similar crimes, although only one such case was a case in which the crime was specifically for child rape.  Therefore, the definition of similar crimes was loosely interpreted by the Louisiana state Supreme Court to be applied specifically for this case.

The question set forth in this case was whether states violate the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment by imposing the death sentence for the crime of child rape, especially where there was no intent or follow-through of killing the child.  On the contrary, the state of Louisiana argued that the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” (OrderInTheCourt.org).  Essentially, this argument states that the standards within Louisiana are evolving, and that it was in fact constitutional to implement a death penalty conviction for the crime of child rape in this state’s society.  According to the argument, society demanded that an evolved interpretation of the amendment be taken in which “cruel and unusual punishment” is determined by the society in which the original case is argued.  Unfortunately for the state of Louisiana, the United States Supreme Court majority believed that such an argument is incorrect and the society of the entire United States is taken into consideration, not solely the geographic society in which the case was originally heard or the crime occurred.

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of Kennedy and declared that the Eighth Amendment bars states 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 child’s death (OrderInTheCourt.org).  Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Souter and Stevens made up the majority opinion in this case.  The court decided that applying the death penalty in such a case would be defined as “cruel and unusual punishment” and it is a violation of the national consensus of the issue.  A total of six states have passed laws prior to the Kennedy ruling to validate that the Eighth Amendment for such a crime is unconstitutional.  The majority opinion cited these states in their written arguments that the Eighth Amendment was unconstitutional for the crime of child rape.  Although no prior law had been in place at the federal level to suggest that there was a national consensus on the issue, the majority opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana implied that a national consensus exists that the death penalty, overall, should not be used as a viable penalty for child rape.

However, the minority opinion consisted of votes from Justices Alita, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.  These four justices argued that no national consensus formally exists, and states should have the right to choose the proper penalty for such cases.  Despite the dissenting opinions, Kennedy v. Louisiana can now be used for upholding similar rulings throughout the United States or to be grounds for appeal.  The definition of “cruel and unusual punishment” can be vague and unclear, which is the ultimate purpose for the court system’s ability to create constitutional rulings to interpret the meanings of the amendments in such cases.  This case sought to create a more acceptable definition of the Eighth Amendment and to determine whether such convictions should be left to the state courts for such crimes.

References

Eighth amendment. (2006). Retrieved from http://law.jrank.org/pages/6368/Eighth-Amendment.html

Justia.com. (n.d.). Kennedy v. Louisiana. Retrieved from http://supreme.justia.com/us/554/07-343/

OrderInTheCourt.org. Kennedy v. Louisiana. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://orderinthecourt.org/Cases/Kennedy-v-Louisiana