Patrick O. Kennedy, 43, is one of two people facing execution in the United States for a crime other than murder. According to his lawyers, Kennedy’s sentence is unconstitutional and should be deemed cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to begin hearing arguments in the case today.
On the morning of Mar. 2, 1998, Kennedy called a 9-1-1 from his New Orleans, Louisiana home and told the dispatcher his 8-year-old stepdaughter had been raped. According to his own account, Kennedy was alerted to the incident when he heard screams coming from outside. When he ran to investigate, he said he discovered his stepdaughter lying in the grass in a side yard. Kennedy stated that she told him two boys had grabbed her and raped her.
When Deputy Michael Burgess of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrived at the Kennedy residence, he observed a small pool of coagulated blood in the side yard, but noticed no other signs indicating a struggle or rape had taken place at that location. However, as Burgess walked through the garage, he noticed a trail of blood drops leading to the house. The droplets suddenly stopped inside the house, but reappeared at the bottom of a nearby stairway and were visible leading up the stairs and to a bedroom, where he found the child lying on a bed, wrapped in a bloody blanket. As Burgess surveyed the situation, Kennedy took a towel and began wiping blood from his hands. When Burgess asked him how he got the blood on his hands, Kennedy said it was a result of carrying his stepdaughter from the backyard to the upstairs bathroom, where he said he cleaned her up. This explanation might have been feasible; however, Burgess found it suspicious that Kennedy did not have any blood on his clothes. It was also suspicious that he would clean her up in the bathtub, an action that would surely hinder investigators in obtaining evidence of the rape.
Burgess attempted to question the young girl, but she was only semi responsive, and Kennedy kept interrupting, answering the questions before she could respond. He claimed that two young black males were responsible for the attack.
When paramedics arrived on the scene, they transported the child to Children’s Hospital, where a physician observed profuse bleeding from her vaginal area. Upon closer examination, it became apparent that her entire perineum was torn, and her rectum was protruding into her vagina. The seriousness of the injuries required emergency surgery to repair the damage. According to later testimony, by Dr. Scott Benton, an expert in pediatric forensic medicine, he had never seen a child with such severe sexual assault injuries.
Unconvinced by Kennedy’s account of the attack, investigators secured a search warrant for the home. During a four-day search that began on Mar. 4 and ended on Mar. 5, investigators conducted luminol tests inside Kennedy’s house. The tests revealed large pools of blood on the carpet near the victim’s bed. Investigators also found bloodstains on the underside of the victim’s mattress, suggesting it had been turned over to conceal the evidence. During a separate search of the garage, investigators found a jug of steam cleaner liquid, a water pail and two towels.
Unfortunately, the bloodstains were unable to provide investigators with enough DNA evidence to identify a source. Investigators were also unable to obtain a semen sample from the victim’s clothing or from swabs that were taken when she was admitted to the hospital.
Police soon learned that Kennedy had called B&B Carpet Cleaning early on the morning of Mar. 2 and told them he needed bloodstains removed from his carpet. However, when an employee showed up later that morning, he was unable to enter the home because the police and paramedics were on the scene.
When investigators spoke with Kennedy’s boss at A. Arpet Moving Co., they were told that he had left a message on the answering machine sometime before 6:00 a.m., on Mar. 2, stating that he would not be able to make it in to work. Sometime later, between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m., Kennedy called back and spoke with Alvin Arguello, the company’s chief dispatcher. During the conversation, Kennedy allegedly asked how to get blood out of a carpet, explaining that his stepdaughter had “just become a young lady.”
On May 7, 1998, a grand jury indicted Kennedy for the aggravated rape of a victim under the age of 12.
Kennedy’s case slowly made its way through the courts, and the trial finally began in Aug. 2003. The state presented evidence obtained by their crime scene investigators, testimony by the owner of the carpet cleaning company and the dispatcher at Kennedy’s employer; however, the most damaging testimony came from the victim, now 13, who had since come forward and said that Kennedy had pressured her into telling police that two boys had attacked her.
When the prosecutor asked the victim to recall what had happened to her, she said, “I woke up one morning and Patrick was on top of me and…” The victim was unable to complete the sentence and broke down crying. After a recess, she took the stand again and told the prosecutor that when she woke up on the morning of Mar. 2, 1998, Kennedy was on top of her. She stated that he covered her eyes and then raped her. She explained that afterwards he told her to tell the police a story he made up. She said she fainted shortly thereafter and could not remember anything else leading up to her arrival at the hospital.
In addition to the victim’s testimony, Kennedy’s goddaughter, now in her 20s, took the stand and testified that Kennedy had abused her twice and had had sexual intercourse with her once when she was a child. She said she later told her family about the incidents, but was told to keep quiet.
Kennedy’s defense focused on the inconclusive blood tests and their theory that the victim had been pressured to change her story.
On Aug. 25, 2003, a jury found Kennedy guilty of aggravated rape. The following day, in a unanimous decision, they recommended the death penalty. The following month, the district court denied a motion filed by Kennedy’s attorneys asking for a new trial and formally sentenced him to death.
In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed death sentences involving the rape of an adult, but the ruling failed to address cases of child rape, thus allowing Louisiana to follow its own guidelines. Under Louisiana law, individuals convicted of aggravated rape can be sentenced to death if the victim is less than 12 years old.
When the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld Kennedy’s sentence, Justice Jeffrey Victory wrote, “Our state legislature and this court have determined this category of aggravated rapist to be among those deserving of the death penalty, and short of first-degree murder, we can think of no other non-homicide crime more deserving.”
Kennedy’s lawyers challenged the ruling in federal court, and the case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, who has since agreed to hear the case.
According to Kennedy’s lawyers, his sentence violates the Eighth Amendment, which was designed to protect citizens from cruel and unusual punishment. Kennedy's lawyers also claim he was singled out because he is African American and state that 90% of past executions pertaining to rapes involved African American people.
“This court should pause before condoning a practice so heavily tinged with the scourge of racism,” Kennedy’s lead lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, recently stated in an interview with the Associated Press.
Why Kennedy’s race should exclude him from execution remains unclear. According to court records, the child’s rape is estimated to have occurred sometime before 6:00 a.m. Kennedy’s 9-1-1 call was not placed until 9:18 a.m. If you do the math, the 8-year-old victim in this case suffered her own “cruel and unusual punishment” for at least three hours. That goes without mentioning the lifetime of pain she has had to suffer as a result of the acts committed by this monster.
"It's going to be justice," Lynn Ray, the victim's cousin, told CNN yesterday. "It's going to be that she can look forwards and not backwards, and not have to look over your shoulders, and one day see him. Or see him coming after her."
The court is expected to issue a ruling in the case by June.