After the Supreme Court held in Kennedy v. Louisiana 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," you may have thought that this debate would be over. Recently however, an Oklahoma lawmaker says he wants to make the death penalty an option for repeat sex offenders.
A similar bill passed in Oklahoma in 2006, but was shot down by the Supreme Court a year later. Duncan says his bill would be much more specific than that bill and thinks it would be upheld by the Supreme Court.
Sex abuse expert Sharon Doty agrees, but not when it comes to the death penalty. She believes life without parole would be a harsher punishment.
"They think their behavior is normal and appropriate," Doty says. "So, when that's what you're impacting something like the death penalty, I don't think is really going to be a deterrent."
She says the real answer is prevention -- educating children and adults to know what to look for.
"There is no cure for that," Doty says. "The only cure we have for this is prevention. So, we have to prevent either before they act or when they're convicted when they need to put them away and leave them there."
H/T: Sentencing Law & Policy.
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