09 February 2025 :
February 5, 2025 - Alabama. Alabama House committee approves bill imposing death penalty for child sexual assault
Alabama may join Florida and Tennessee in imposing the death penalty for crimes not resulting in a person’s death.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday approved HB 49, sponsored by Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, which would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for adults convicted of raping or sodomizing those younger than 12 years old in lieu of sentencing them to life without the possibility of parole.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1977 case of Coker vs. Georgia that the death penalty could only be applied to crimes resulting in death.
Erlich Anthony Coker was sentenced to death by Georgia courts for raping a woman following an escape from a prison, where he was serving several sentences for rape, kidnapping and assault.
In a 7-2 decision, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the punishment was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling in Kennedy vs. Louisiana in 2008, involving a defendant sentenced to death for the rape of a child.
A narrow majority of the justices agreed that “applying the death penalty in such a case would be an exercise of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in violation of a national consensus on the issue.”
Several Republican-led states are hoping to change that idea. Florida in 2023 passed a law to challenge the ruling, as did Tennessee in 2024.
“This is an attempt to challenge that,” Simpson said of his bill.
The bill moves to the Alabama House of Representatives for consideration.
