Eye for an Eye, Death for a Rape
The sentencing to death of a Louisiana man this week for raping an 8-year-old girl has reopened a debate about whether crimes that do not involve killings may ever be punished by death.
There has not been an execution for rape in the United States since 1964, and no one has been executed for any crime that did not involve a killing since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.