Tennessee Law That Allows Death Penalty for Child Rapists Goes Into Effect

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks in the East Room of the White House on April 30, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Tennessee joins Florida to become the second state to authorize the death penalty for child rapists.

In May, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed into law House Bill 1663, which allows the state to consider the death penalty as one of three punishments for those convicted of child rape. The law went into effect on Monday, July 1.

GOP state Rep. William Lamberth sponsored the measure that calls for the death penalty, imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole, or life imprisonment for adults convicted of aggravated rape of a child.

“For the most heinous crimes imaginable #startingtoday rape of a child in TN will result in the death penalty,” Mr. Lamberth wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on July 1. “We simply will NOT tolerate these heinous acts in our state.”

Last year, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar bill allowing capital punishment when an adult is convicted of raping a child under the age of 12.

In December, state prosecutors announced that they were seeking the death penalty for a man accused of committing sexual battery of a child under 12. The case was considered the first since the law took effect in October.

Earlier this year, Idaho’s Republican-controlled House approved a similar measure, but the legislation never made it out of the GOP-dominated Senate.

The Tennessee bill received pushback from Democrats, who argued that the bill was unconstitutional.

The state previously allowed the death penalty for convicted child rapists, but the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the law with its 5-4 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana in 2008.

“Based both on consensus and our own independent judgment, our holding is that a death sentence for one who raped but did not kill a child, and who did not intend to assist another in killing the child, is unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in his majority opinion.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his dissenting opinion that “neither Congress nor juries have done anything that can plausibly be interpreted as evidencing the ‘national consensus’ that the court perceives.”

“The Eighth Amendment’s requirements, the Court writes, are ‘determined not by the standards that prevailed’ when the Amendment was adopted but ‘by the norms that currently prevail,’” Justice Alito continued. 

Supporters of the death penalty for child rape say they hope the Supreme Court will reverse its earlier decision.

“Maybe the atmosphere is different on the Supreme Court,” said Tennessee Republican state Sen. Janice Bowling in April while debating in favor of the bill. “We’re simply challenging a ruling.”

But the governor told reporters that he did not sign the bill in hopes that it would be tested; rather, he signed it because crimes against children are “some of the most heinous that there are.”

Some lawmakers said they fear the law will instill more fear into child rape victims, especially when it involves a family member.

They argued that children could believe they are responsible for the execution of the predator, which may prevent them from speaking out.

Others allege the measure could incentivize predators to kill their victims.