New: Execution for sex crimes

Governor signs law allowing death penalty for certain offenders

TIM TALLEY

Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma on Friday became the fifth state to allow the death penalty for certain sex crimes, although legal scholars questioned the constitutionality of the new state law.

Under the measure signed by Gov. Brad Henry, anyone convicted twice of rape, sodomy or lewd molestation involving children younger than 14 can face the death penalty.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford signed a similar law Thursday allowing the death penalty for offenders convicted twice of raping children younger than 11. Louisiana, Florida and Montana also allow execution for certain sex crimes.

Defense attorneys and death penalty experts said the laws defy recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have scaled back the death penalty's application.

Barbara Bergman, president of the Washington-based National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said Supreme Court decisions have made it clear the death penalty is reserved for someone who has taken a life.

"I'm not saying that raping a child is not a horrible crime, but no one has died," said Bergman, who was part of the defense team that helped Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols avoid the death penalty after he was 2004 convicted on 161 murder counts.

David Brook, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., said the measure might actually put a child rape victim's life at risk.

"The last message you want to give an offender who has the life of a child in his hands is you might as well kill the child because he's already got the death penalty," said Brook, who runs the Virginia Capital Case Clearing House, which assists lawyers in death penalty cases.

No one convicted of a sex offense has been executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 30 years ago, though one inmate is on death row in Louisiana, convicted in 2003 of raping an 8-year-old girl.