Last year, I published an article dealing with the Louisiana statute and other attempts to apply the death penalty to rape and child molestation. I concluded that the application of the death penalty in such cases is a bad idea for a few reasons.

First, from an entirely policy perspective, the end result of using capital punishment in such cases would be an increase in dead kids (as you acknowledge in your post). Because child molestation is almost always a one witness crime and punishment is not increased by killing the kid, the incentive to kill the victim is stronger than in other non-homocide crimes. There is very limited empirical evidence pertaining to adult rape to support the risk of rapists killing their victims when their is no increased risk of punishment.

Second, the incentives to report are diminished under a capital punishment regime. Child rape victims are more often raped by family members or friends. Because of this, reporting rates are very low compared to other crimes. Adding the risk of executing "Crazy Uncle Frank" can dissaude families from reporting the crimes. This can actually decrease deterrence substantially.

Third, from a rhetorical perspective, I argued that equivocating rape with death (as capital punishment and surrounding justifications often do) creates some pernicious effects. It supports the notion that rape victims are "better off dead" and since they have suffered already, suicide becomes a "rational" option. Given the rates of suicide among survivors, any rhetorical support should be resisted.

Fourth, I argued even in the case of children, capital punishment for rape is fundamentally anti-feminist. The Victorian idea that a victim should die rather than be violated (as personified by Saint Maria Goretti) is bound up in equivocating death with rape.

Anyway, my article is on SSRN if you are interested. The abstract and download are at:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=683252

Corey Rayburn

All of that is really interesting. I had not given any thought to the familial aspect of rape and how the death penalty would cause such painful choices. I'll definitely take a look at your paper.

OK, I changed my mind. I don't think that the fact that most child rape is intrafamilial should dictate a lower punishment. If you can argue that having a high punishment for rape is a paternalistic view of women as property, then I will argue back that having a lower penalty for an intrafamilial crime further reinforces that your children and women are your property and you can do with them what you will. Most women who are murdered are murdered by intimates, but that murder can still warrant the death penalty. So, I stick by my earlier argument that if we think murder justifies the death penalty (which I actually don't), then rape of a child does, too.

I am currently writing a paper right now based on the Coker v Georgia case.

your statement above-
"I have heard an argument that rape should carry a lesser penalty than murder so that rapists will have an incentive to leave their victims alive. That argument does seem compelling, but I guess the same argument could be made one rung down the argument ladder. If rape carries the death penalty, perhaps rapists would have an incentive not to rape.
"
is quite a valid point.

coming from one who has been raped,it gives you a different view on punishment for rapests.
It is a point that i always make.
if one was sentenced to death for the act of rape, it would limit the amount of rape that occures.

Valid points all of you. I am currently writing a paper on sexual child abuse being seen as a heinous and capital crime. Coming from a victim who's abuser gets out if prison this year I must say that a couple of Mr. Rayburn's points may be a little contradictory. In many cases of child abuse it is true that the adult is a family memeber or some other adult in authority that the child knows. However, this fact alone is contradictory to capital punishment giving them a free reign to kill the child. Most abusers love their victims in one demented form and rationalize their abuse as a act of love. They more than likely would never kill them even with capital punishment as threat.
Another point is that it would lower the victims view of themselves if they are seen the same dead or alive. I don't really see how this would come into play unless they were directly compared to a murder victim during the trial. In many cases when the abuser walks with probation and having to register as a sex offender it sends the message to the victim that what they did wasn't all that bad. This thought is what will hurt their self-esteem. Children need to feel protected, and to help with recovery they need to know that they didn't do anything wrong. All of the blame and puishment needs to be placed on the abuser.