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.
