Child Rapists Deserve To Live?

The Supreme Court just handed down the decision that no child rapist is allowed to be executed for their crimes. This saves a Louisiana man from the execution planned for him after sneaking into his eight year old step-daughter's room and raping her in the middle of the night. The majority of the Court cites that death for such a crime would be cruel and unusual punishment, thus violating the Eighth Amendment:

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, saying, "The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapist is grave." He was supported by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In his dissent, Alito wrote that the majority ruled against the death penalty "no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted and no matter how heinous the perpetrator's criminal record may be."

Supporters of Louisiana's law say that besides murder, no crime is more deserving of the death penalty than child rape, and the punishment would be used only in the most heinous of circumstances.

So, basically, if a five time repeat offender gets his hands on a two year old and goes at her for days, even weeks, he won't get the death penalty unless he kills her? I'm sorry, but that's crap. Oh sure, they deserve the right to live, and my tax dollars will go to making him comfortable, feeding him, hell even educating him. If he's going to live, the best they can do is put him in a cell with a 300-pound horn dog named Bubba.

People who haven't been abused or raped don't really understand the long-term effects of that kind of thing. I was abused anywhere from three to five years, not mentioning the things that happened to me later in life, and I don't think that it's fair that the person who started the cycle of abuse that eventually got to me or to my sister just gets off with no consequence. Sure, jail would be fine with me, but compared to others I did not have it that bad. It's not fair what people can get away with and not get the right amount of punishment.

Any form of sexual abuse clearly leaves it's own physical mark on the victim. But the really long-lasting problems are psychological and emotional. I've had terrible trust issues because of my abuse, and that led to a whole string of terrible relationships, not to mention how it fractured relationships with my family at times. Any word, smell, situation, the way someone looks at you - all that can throw you right back into that point of time where your innocence was stolen from you by someone looking to have a good time. That can happen everyday, or if you're lucky only a few times a month. The nightmares that you can have are excruciatingly painful, depicting anything you can remember. The only alternative to remembering all that is to forget the whole point of time surrounding your abuse.

Despite my photographic and great memory, I can only remember bits and pieces from when my abuse occurred. I wish I could remember more - times I spent with my sister and the rest of my family, things like that. But those memories are gone and I probably won't get them back unless I can go through all of my abuse and work more on getting over it than ignoring it. I'm strong, but I'm not sure that I'm that strong quite yet.

I know that with Theron's help I've been able to get over and go through a lot of what's happened to me, and I bet he doesn't even know it. That's really the only way you can ever recover from something as heinous as any sort of abuse - find someone who loves you for you and who only wants the best for you, someone who is understanding and who can tell when there's something wrong, someone who will do whatever it takes to cheer you up. I only hope that other people who've gone through stuff like this can work through the fog and find someone like him.