Case Information
*1 CALIA SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________ No. 07–343 _________________ PATRICK KENNEDY, PETITIONER ON PETITION FOR REHEARING [October 1, 2008]
Statement of J S , with whom T HE C HIEF USTICE joins, respecting the denial of rehearing. Respondent has moved for rehearing of this case be- cause there has come to light a federal statute enacted in 2006 permitting the death sentence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for rape of a minor. See Pub L. 109–163, §552(b)(1), 119 Stat. 3263. This provision was not cited by either party, nor by any of the numerous amici in the case; it was first brought to the Court’s atten- tion after the opinion had issued, in a letter signed by 85 Members of Congress. Respondent asserts that rehearing is justified because this statute calls into question the majority opinion’s conclusion that there is a national consensus against capital punishment for rape of a child. I am voting against the petition for rehearing because the views of the American people on the death penalty for child rape were, to tell the truth, irrelevant to the major- ity’s decision in this case. The majority opinion, after an unpersuasive attempt to show that a consensus against the penalty existed, in the end came down to this: “[T]he Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judg- ment will be brought to bear on the question of the accept- ability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amend- ment.” Ante, at ___ (slip op., at 24). Of course the Constitution contemplates no such thing; the proposed *2 KENNEDY Eighth Amendment would have been laughed to scorn if it had read “no criminal penalty shall be imposed which the Supreme Court deems unacceptable.” But that is what the majority opinion said, and there is no reason to believe that absence of a national consensus would provoke second thoughts.
While the new evidence of American opinion is ulti-
mately irrelevant to the majority’s decision, let there be no
doubt that it utterly destroys the majority’s claim to be
discerning a national consensus and not just giving effect
to the majority’s own preference. As noted in the letter
from Members of Congress, the bill providing the death
penalty for child rape passed the Senate 95–0; it passed
the House 374–41, with the votes of a majority of each
State’s delegation; and was signed by the President.
USTICE ’s statement posits two reasons why this
act by Congress proves nothing about the national consen-
sus regarding permissible penalties for child rape. First,
it claims the statute merely “reclassif[ied]” the offense of
child rape.
Ante
, at 2. But the law did more than that; it
specifically
established
(as it would have to do) the penalty
for the
new offense
of child rape—and that penalty was
death: “For an offense under subsection (a) (rape) or sub-
section (b) (rape of a child),
death or such other punish-
ment as a court-martial may direct
.” §552(b)(1), 119 Stat.
3263 (emphasis added). By separate executive order, the
President later expressly reauthorized the death penalty
as a punishment for child rape. Exec. Order No. 13447, 72
Fed. Reg. 56214 (2007). Based on these acts, there is
infinitely more reason to think that Congress and the
President made a judgment regarding the appropriateness
of the death penalty for child rape than there is to think
that the many
non-
enacting state legislatures upon which
the majority relies did so—especially since it was widely
believed that
Coker
took the capital-punishment option off
the table. See
Coker
v.
Georgia
,