cultivating of young girls and boys by pedophiles is a heinous crime
Certainly, but is it a crime that needs the death penalty? At age 10 I too experienced some sexual exploitation and exposure to other family member's incestuous relationship, but I don't think anybody needed to be executed for it.
I do not feel that the death penalty would encourage offenders to kill their victims.
I acknowledge your feelings and I am sure they are justified. But how do the offenders feel about it? That is the important question, since a lesser penalty for non-murder could possibly save some victims from being killed. Isn't that a worthwhile goal?
Sources have shown that offenders need to ratchet up the violence to continue getting their jollies. So I would still be for the death penalty in child rape/molestation convictions.
But then we would be convicting and punishing them for crimes they have not yet committed! There has to be an approach that respects due process.
For example, I rather like the idea of getting life-time supervised parole after a decade or two in prison if he volunteers to have all his man-parts removed. (That would include blood testing to make sure the parolee was not taking any steroids or male hormones.) That removes the drive AND the rewards for additional sexual offenses. I think this kind of penalty would be a good fit to the child rapist who DIDN'T kill his victim.
In cases where a violent assault of any type ended in death and there is absolutely no doubt, then I have no problem at all with execution. But I would never want to see anybody executed solely on the eyewitness testimony of a person who did not know them well. Way too many "looked like him" ids have been turned into invalid convictions.
