Death Penalty for Child Rape Is Constitutional: The Arguments For and Against the Penalty FindLaw columnist and visiting Princeton law and public affairs professor Marci Hamilton discusses a case in which the Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday, April 16. The Court must decide whether a defendant convicted of raping an eight-year-old can constitutionally receive the death penalty. Hamilton argues that the offense of child rape may be seen as as grave as murder, in that it destroys a child's life and future. However, she also warns that allowing the death penalty for child rape will not be a panacea for America's problem with child sexual abuse. For that problem to be solved, she contends, repeat perpetrators must be brought to justice, and for that to happen, statutes of limitations must be lengthened or abolished.