Tennessee Law That Allows Death Penalty for Child Rapists Goes Into Effect

Tennessee joins Florida to become the second state to authorize the death penalty for child rapists. In May, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed into law House Bill 1663, which allows the state to consider the death penalty as one of three punishments for those convicted of child rape. The law went into effect on Monday, July 1. GOP state Rep. William Lamberth sponsored the measure that calls for the death penalty, imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole, or life imprisonment for adults convicted of aggravated rape of a child. “For the most heinous crimes imaginable #startingtoday rape of a child in TN will result in the death penalty,” Mr. Lamberth wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on July 1. “We simply will NOT tolerate these heinous acts in our state.”...