South Carolina Legislature Debates Death Penalty for Serial Child Rapists

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On Tuesday, the South Carolina Senate passed a new bill that would make convicted serial rapists eligible for the death penalty if two or more of their victims are under the age of 11. A similar law, targeting rapists whose victims are under 12, is already on the books in Louisiana. The South Carolina bill is not particularly controversial in and of itself, as it is difficult to make the argument that serial child rape is a substantially less severe crime than murder, but it does present a potential constitutional problem.

In Coker v. Georgia (1977), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibits use of the death penalty in cases of rape. The Louisiana law was upheld by a federal court on the grounds that the Coker precedent is only applicable in cases that involve sex crimes committed against adults, but the Supreme Court has yet to decisively rule on the matter. If the Court departs from the federal court's interpretation of Coker and strikes down the precedent altogether, then state laws mandating the death penalty for other types of sex crimes may follow.