Also known as: non-homicide crime · nonhomicide crimes · non-homicide crimes · nonhomicide offense · non-homicide offense
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A criminal offense that does not result in the death of another person. The distinction determines the constitutionality of certain severe punishments under the Eighth Amendment.
Neil Nair, age sixteen, pleaded guilty to armed burglary and attempted robbery. After violating probation by committing further nonlethal offenses, the court imposed life without parole. Because the crimes caused no death, the sentence violates the categorical Eighth Amendment bar for juvenile nonhomicide offenders.
Nina Nielsen, a hospital orderly, raped an adult patient during an overnight shift. The victim survived with bruises and emotional trauma but no life-threatening injuries. The state statute mandated death, yet the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for this nonhomicide offense against an adult.
Nolan Nunez, a school principal, sexually assaulted a ten-year-old student after school hours. The child survived without additional physical injury, and Nolan neither intended nor caused death. The statute authorized death for school-based child rape, but the Eighth Amendment prohibits capital punishment for this nonhomicide crime.
On March 2, 1998, Patrick Kennedy called 911 at 9:18 a.m. to report that his eight-year-old stepdaughter L.H. had been raped in the side yard by two neighborhood boys who fled on a blue bicycle. Police arrived between 9:20 and 9:30 a.m. and found L.H. on her bed wrapped in a bloody blanket. She was bleeding profusely from severe vaginal injuries that included a laceration separating her cervix from the vagina and a torn perineum requiring emergency surgery at Children's Hospital. Kennedy initially told investigators that L.H. had been dragged from the garage to the yard. Both L.H. and Kennedy maintained this account in early interviews, including a three-hour videotaped session with a psychologist days after the assault. Physical evidence soon contradicted the yard account. The grass showed little disturbance except for coagulated blood. A bicycle found nearby had flat tires and spider webs. Blood was discovered on the underside of L.H.'s mattress inside the home. Kennedy had also made telephone calls before 7:37 a.m. inquiring how to remove blood from carpet. He had called a cleaning service. He did not contact 911 until roughly 9:18 a.m. Eight days after the crime, Kennedy was arrested. About a month later L.H. was removed from her mother's custody. On June 22, 1998, she first told her mother that Kennedy had raped her. In December 1999 she recorded a videotaped accusation at the Child Advocacy Center. The State charged Kennedy with aggravated rape of a child under twelve under La. Stat. Ann. § 14:42 and sought the death penalty. The trial began in August 2003 when L.H. was thirteen. She testified that Kennedy had been on top of her, had given her orange juice with chopped pills afterward, and had instructed her to blame neighborhood boys. The jury convicted Kennedy of aggravated rape. After hearing testimony from another child about prior sexual abuse by Kennedy, the jury unanimously sentenced him to death. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence in 2007. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2008.
View caseThe Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits life without parole for a juvenile convicted of a nonhomicide offense. The rule applies once the offender is under eighteen and the crime caused no death, regardless of the offense's severity or planning involved.
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The Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty for the rape of a child when the victim neither dies nor was intended to die. Aggravating factors such as the offender's position of authority or the location of the offense do not remove the crime from the nonhomicide category.
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When an adult rape victim survives, the Eighth Amendment treats the offense as nonhomicide and bars capital punishment. The victim's survival controls the analysis even if the assault involved extreme violence, breach of trust, or occurred in a vulnerable setting.
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An offense remains nonhomicide when the defendant neither kills the victim nor intends to cause death. The constitutional limits on death and juvenile life without parole turn on this absence of lethal intent or result rather than on the degree of other harm inflicted.
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…is the second-harshest sentence available under our precedents for any crime, and the most severe sanction available for a nonhomicide offense. See Kennedy v. Louisiana , 554 U.S. 407, 128 S. Ct. 2641, 171 L. Ed. 2d 525 (2008). Indeed, as the majority notes, Graham’s sentence far exceeded the punishment proposed by the Florida…