Attorneys for Patrick Kennedy, the only per­son on death row in the U.S. for a non-homi­cide offense, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether a death sen­tence for a crime where the vic­tim was not mur­dered is con­sti­tu­tion­al. Kennedy was con­vict­ed of rap­ing his 8‑year-old step-daugh­ter in Louisiana in 1998. Only a hand­ful of states have laws that would allow a death sen­tence for such a crime. No one has been exe­cut­ed for a non-homi­cide offense since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, and Kennedy is the only per­son under a death sen­tence for such an offense.

Kennedy has main­tained his inno­cence of the under­ly­ing crime since his arrest, and defense attor­ney Jelpi P. Picou, Jr., notes that there was ​“no phys­i­cal evi­dence” link­ing Kennedy to the crime.

There has not been an exe­cu­tion for rape in the United States since 1964. The U.S. Supreme Court last looked at the con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion in 1977, when it held that the death penal­ty for the rape of an adult was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, call­ing the death penal­ty ​“gross­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate” and ​“exces­sive” in that instance. In 1997, the Supreme Court refused to hear a chal­lenge to Louisiana’s child-rape law because the defen­dant had not been sen­tenced to death. At that time, Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer indi­cat­ed that they had reser­va­tions about the law and that the Court’s refusal to con­sid­er the appeal ​“does not in any way con­sti­tute a rul­ing on the mer­its.”
(ABC News, September 11, 2007). Read Kennedy’s Petition for cer­tio­rari. See also, Arbitrariness, Crimes Punishable by Death, and Supreme Court.

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