Articles of Interest: Op-ed says new Tennessee law that expands the death penalty to child rape ​“creates more problems than it solves.”

A July 7, 2024 op-ed in the Tennessean argues that the recent enac­tion of SB 1834, which makes the rape of a child pun­ish­able by death, ​“does more harm than good.” Sarah McGee (pic­tured), coor­di­na­tor for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, explains that dur­ing her work as a vic­tim-wit­ness coor­di­na­tor for Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, pro­ba­tion offi­cer, and assis­tant pub­lic defend­er, she ​“learned that when child ser­vice providers and experts, the peo­ple car­ing for these chil­dren every day all over our state, have repeat­ed­ly stat­ed that this leg­is­la­tion will not make chil­dren safer but will instead keep chil­dren from report­ing the crime at all, or could even endan­ger their lives, we should heed their expert advice.” 

Experts warn that SB 1834, which is effec­tive as of July 1, 2024, will lead to dras­tic under-report­ing by the child-vic­tims and might inad­ver­tent­ly encour­age per­pe­tra­tors to kill their vic­tims since the pun­ish­ment is now the same for both mur­der and rape. Despite Supreme Court prece­dent find­ing that the death penal­ty for non-homi­cide crimes is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, SB 1834 passed the Senate 24 – 5 and the House 77 – 19. Ms. McGee describes issues with the ​“inher­ent­ly flawed” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, such as the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tion and the high costs. She points to the failed efforts of two leg­is­la­tors to amend the bill — one seek­ing to mit­i­gate the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tions by requir­ing bod­i­ly injury or phys­i­cal evi­dence be present to cor­rob­o­rate the charge and anoth­er propos­ing trau­ma sup­port ser­vices for the child vic­tims and their families.