DeSantis signs law allowing death penalty for child rape, defying US Supreme Court ruling – By Douglas Soule (USA Today) / May 1, 2023
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed into law a measure making child rape subject to the death penalty, defying a United States Supreme Court ruling.
“In Florida, we stand for the protection of children,” DeSantis said at a Monday press conference in Brevard County. “We think that in the worst of the worst cases the only appropriate punishment is the ultimate punishment.”
But, in 2008, U.S. Supreme Court justices issued a 5-4 ruling barring states from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child, when the crime does not involve a child’s death. The court rules that applying the death penalty in such cases would amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.”
