Well, this seems like a naked pander to me: Barack Obama says he disagrees with yesterday's Supreme Court decision striking down the death penalty for child rapists. The Wall Street Journal reports:
“I disagree with the decision. I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes,” Obama told reporters at a press conference in Chicago.
The expected Democratic nominee said he believed the rape of a child “is a heinous crime” that fits the circumstance, siding with the four conservative justices who sit on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.
Alito's reasoning in his dissenting opinion, though, was quite flawed, as Scott explains so ably. Alito wrote that child rape evidences a depravity deeper and far more disturbing than that of, for example, a guy who holds up a convenience store and stands by while his accomplice shoots the clerk. Therefore, Alito wrote, the child rapist should be subject to the death penalty, just like the robber. But as Scott points out, couldn't this also mean that the robber shouldn't be subjected to the death penalty? Secondly, Alito argued that the fact that several states allow the death penalty for child rapists proves the practice is backed by public consensus. But at the time of Brown v. Board, or Miranda, or Loving v. Virginia, dozens of states allowed practices that the Court deemed unacceptable.
If Obama has a separate, deeper reasoning for opposing the Court's decision yesterday, he should have out with it. Otherwise, I'll be forced to believe this is a pander. After all, about two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty.
--Dana Goldstein
