Child rape, the death penalty, and a ruling five states want overturned

In 2008, a majority of the Supreme Court decided that executing a man who raped his eight-year-old stepdaughter so violently that she required emergency surgery violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

That’s the holding of Kennedy v.

Louisiana, 554 U.S.

407.

Four justices disagreed.

Sixteen years later, multiple states have passed laws […] ...