‘The Supreme Court got it wrong’: SC Attorney General calls for death penalty for child rapists

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson says he’s joining a push to overturn a nearly two-decade-old Supreme Court ruling.

Wilson said in a statement Monday that the high court “got it wrong” in its 2008 Kennedy v. Louisiana decision, when it barred states from imposing the death penalty in cases of child rape where the victim did not die. Wilson joined 20 other attorneys general in a letter to the Department of Justice and the White House General Counsel dated Sept. 2.

“For too long, child predators have been shielded from the full weight of justice,” Wilson said in a statement. “Anyone who rapes a child commits one of the most monstrous crimes imaginable, and they should face the most severe punishment the law allows. South Carolina will never side with predators. We will always fight to put the safety of children above the interests of criminals, and we are standing with other states to restore this critical authority.”

Wilson’s office said the letter argues the Kennedy decision “stripped states of a vital tool to punish and deter predators who commit the most extreme sexual assaults against children.” It goes on to note that states have since passed laws authorizing the death penalty for child rape that, according to Wilson’s office, shows “that there is no true national consensus against the practice and demonstrating efforts to enact child rape statutes that are distinguishable from the one that was struck down in Kennedy."

Click here to read the full letter by Wilson.

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