[Willie Bee]

I was actually surprised this vote was as narrow as it was, 5-4. Alito's comments after the decision were meant to stand for the slim majority, and one of the arguments against it makes some sense. I think there are only six or seven states that allowed for the death penalty in these cases, and Alito noted that in the past 35-40 years or so, only four people have been sentenced to die for child rape. According to the majority, their reasoning was with so few states using it and so few actually given the death penalty for the crime, it marked a general consensus that the public thinks capital punishment is too harsh for the crime.

Now I tend to side with what I suspect to be the majority of people that would love to see these sons a'bitches strung up by their tiny little nuts and suffer a very slow, agonizing death. But there were child advocacy groups that argued, and this makes more sense than any argument to me, that the vast majority of child rape is at the hands of a relative or close family friend. It's already tough to get some people to come forward to rat on a family member or close family friend, and if they thought the family member or friend might be sentenced to death, even fewer would come forward and actually testify against them.