19 December 2007 :
Blunt proposes death penalty for child rapists Gov. Matt Blunt wants child rapists to be executed.Missouri's governor proposed legislation allowing the death sentence for people convicted of forcibly raping or sodomizing a child younger than 12.
In recent years, several other states have enacted laws allowing the death penalty for people who rape children.
A new Texas law allows executions for people convicted of a 2nd offense of raping a child younger than 14. Oklahoma and South Carolina enacted death penalty laws in 2006 that also apply to repeat child sex offenders.
But so far, Louisiana is the only state to have sentenced a child rapist to death.
In January, Blunt proposed to make the death penalty mandatory for criminals who kill law enforcement officers unless they could prove their lives should be spared. That bill passed the House but never came to a vote in the Senate. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that other states' mandatory death penalty laws were unconstitutional.
(Sources: Associated Press, 13/12/2007)