Today's ridiculous Supreme Court decision reflects the Left's goals - logic and reason-free, they are entirely based on ideology. Here's a quick summary:
- The voters of Louisiana, and two juries of murderers' peers, have decided that child rape has grave enough consequences of the death penalty.
- The Supreme Court weighed in on a convicted [adult victim] rapist in the 70s, determining that such rapists deserve to have a long, meaningful life behind bars. Essentially, rape of a woman isn't destructive enough to pass their "cruel and unusual punishment" test.
- When these decisions happen, States follow with written laws reflecting the Supreme Court's stance. It's inevitable - if those laws don't get changed, then the State will waste tens of millions of dollars in prosecuting cases that will get slapped down by higher courts (who are only following the Supreme Court's guidance!). The point is that: Sure, 45 states have passed laws saying "No executions for any crime that manages to leave the victim alive." But the existence of these laws is not evidence of a trend in national sentiment. Herein is Justice Kennedy's (and the other 4 Justices siding with him) great dishonesty. He knows it, but he's been willing to use a house of cards to support many of his major decisions (such as leaving Roe v. Wade intact)
- A small handful of States decided, since the 70s case was based on an adult woman and child rape is even more abhorrent, we should be allowed to sentence child rapists to death. This makes sense, of course, because a child rapist effectively destroys a life - some such victims would rather be dead because their psyche has been utterly demolished.
- The Supreme Court majority, led by Anthony Kennedy, cited its own infinite wisdom and the inevitable results of its own 1970s decision (and the unavoidable slew of State laws following the Court's iron-fisted ruling). He said that there's been no trend toward executing felons for crimes other than first-degree murder, and there aren't a lot of laws on the books allowing executions for any such crimes.
There have been no such murders because Justice Kennedy's own Court outlawed it 30 years ago! We would have dozens of such laws if the Supreme Court would allow us to have them!

Really, it just makes me want to scream.

Quick! Before the Supreme Court disallows any executions, Execute Mumia Now! It's a close call, though. Any mental deficiencies would prevent the execution outright, thanks to more recent Supreme Court rulings. If I were Mumia's defense attorney, I'd just have him drool a little...

The result here is that child rape will increase - the offenders know there's a limited amount of punishment the State can pass down. The Court has just endangered all of our children a little bit more.