Today yielded a Supreme Court ruling that dismayed a broad sector of the American public. CNN reports:

Child rapists can’t be executed, Supreme Court rules

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that child rapists cannot be executed, concluding that capital punishment for crimes against individuals can be applied only to murderers….

As many observers have noted, this calls into question the use of the death penalty for treason.

Jay at Stop The ACLU Blog immediately pounced on the decision:

Supreme Court: No Death Penalty for Child Rape

It just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t comment on the 5-4 decision for the Supreme Court to rule itself over State’s rights, and the majority’s standard. This is just another example of how important it is to have someone that will appoint constitutionalist judges….

Go read the rest.

The case was based on a death penalty appeal by a child rapist condemned to death in Louisiana. So immediate reaction came from disappointed Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, quoted in the Chicago Tribune:

“The opinion reads more like an out-of-control legislative debate than a constitutional analysis,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican. “One thing is clear: The five members of the court who issued the opinion do not share the same ’standards of decency’ as the people of Louisiana.”

Prepared for this eventuality, the Louisiana legislature had another bill ready for Jindal’s signature, which he signed at once From WRNO (Radio New Orleans):

Jindal Signs Bill Allowing Chemical Castration

Governor Bobby Jindal has signed into law a bill allowing for the chemical castration of sex offenders.

Jindal said, “The Sex Offender Chemical Castration Bill is a good bill, and I am especially glad to sign it into Louisiana law today, on the same day the Supreme Court has made an atrocious ruling against our state’s ability to sentence those who sexually assault our children to the fullest extent. Those who prey on our children are among the very worst criminals imaginable.”

So child rapists won’t be dead in Louisiana, but at least they will be geldings.

And, Jay at Stop The ACLU Blog points to a future solution:

Louisiana Governor Jindal Vows to Amend State Law to Maintain Death as a Penalty for Child Rape

I am glad to know there are still some politicians willing to stand up to the tyrants in black robes!….

Barack Obama got out in front of this quickly, expressing his opposistion to this decision. It was, as MSNBC’s First Read quickly noted, a way to avoid the “Willie Horton” pitfall that ruined Dukakis’ presidential bid:

OBAMA’S NON-DUKAKIS ANSWER

Michael Dukakis, Obama is not.

On the death penalty today, Obama sidestepped a potential political land mine. Opponents could have had something recent and tangible to tag him anew as a hard-left liberal had he answered any differently than he did on the issue.

When asked about Supreme Court ruling against the use of the death penalty in instances of child rape today at a news conference in Chicago, Obama answered, “I disagree with the decision….”

[This is relevant, because lots of observers had been making the comparison between Obama's timeline appoval profile and that of the unfortunate Dukakis, who enjoyed an exciting early lead and subsequently lost forty states.]

Over at Stop The ACLU Blog Jay is surprised:

Shocker: Obama Also Disagrees With Idiotic Supreme Court Decision

You know that the Court has mis-stepped when the most liberal individual in the Senate agrees with the Conservatives….

Well, we don’t really believe this would be Obama’s take under ordinary circumstances, but it makes for opportunistic campaign posturing on a subject where he doesn’t have to prove his commitment. Why don’t we believe him? Because he winked at the prevalent hospital-based infanticide occurring in Illinois when he was in the state Senate.

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler parses the illogic:

Justice Kennedy, defending child rapists’ right to live, argues that they’re merely following a “changing ethos” among the population, which is a remarkably idiotic thing to assert, even for a liberal, when you’re striking down a law passed by the representatives of said population.

Jen O’Hara at Shining City examines the assumptions about our cultural norm:

States’ rights, people! The death penalty is perfectly justifiable for rape, especially child rape! What the heck is wrong with this country? ….

Noting that Justice Kennedy said the absence of any executions for rape and the small number of states that allow it demonstrate “there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape” Jen goes on to say:

There is? Really? I’m not so sure. Even in prison, child molesters have to be kept out of the general population lest they be beaten to death by the other criminals.

Very good point, Jen.

At Webloggin M.K.Freeberg makes a stunning comparison between the text of the majority decision and the passage from the pediatric forensic report that describes the child’s injuries in the test case. Skip this part if you have a weak stomach:

A laceration to the left wall of the vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus.

Go read the complete comparison.

Bloggers were incredulous that SCOTUS would fail to protect the innocents in our society. Typical was the reaction of Buster at In Muscatine:

SCOTUS Loses Their Minds …. Once again proving that in the Liberal mind there is no criminal too heinous to protect….

Buster’s outlook is fairly typical of the hundreds of weblog responses.

If nothing else, this monumentally disappointing decision elicited an outpouring of commentary in the Blogosphere that proves once again the value of our “citizen journalism.” The mainstream media fail to examine all the nuances of events, but collectively, the bloggers leave no stone unturned.

You would not find an exposure of the flawed logic, such as the “Nice Doggie” made in the MSM. Nor would the MSM have done the homework to pore through the documents and produce the striking juxtaposition created by M.K.Freeberg. Jen’s right-on-target example illustrating our cultural norm didn’t appear in major outlets. So our interactive conversation in the Blogosphere serves to inform us better than traditional media.

The SCOTUSblog post is here.

UPDATE, Thursday morning — Jay comments about the chemical castration in Louisiana:

I think a lot of folks will like Bobby Jindal’s response to the idiotic ruling of the Supreme Court. Since they don’t think death is proportional punishment, I wonder how they’ll feel about castration?