To Lay Violent Hands By Matthew Williams Summary

In the article “To Lay Violent Hands” by Matthew L. Williams, the prosecution and punishment for rape were discussed at length, but in reality, at the time very few people were actually convicted of rape. Many received lesser convictions such as attempted rape or assault which resulted in whippings or other lesser punishments, but only a small minority received a conviction of rape and were executed. As contemporary readers, we as a class wondered if rapists faced a lower rate of conviction due to the harsh punishment or perhaps due to the lack of women’s rights at the time. In this essay, I will attempt to analyze whether it was the death penalty, societal norms, or both that prevented so many accused rapists from being convicted.

First I

First I will use the US as a reference because we have considerably lessened the punishment over the years. In the colonial period, the penalty for rape was the death penalty and the conviction rate was one conviction in eight cases, which is about 12.5% (Williams). Since the 1970s, the punishment for rape of an adult woman is a prison sentence, and on average convicted rapists are sentenced to 9.8 years and serve 5.4 years (Laws regarding Rape). The conviction in reported cases of rape in the twenty-first century was about 8%, though if you consider unreported cases, only about 2.5% are convicted in a sample size of 1000 (The Criminal Justice System: Statistics). Of course, these sample sizes are vastly different, but it does show that reducing the punishment of rape from the death penalty didn’t have a noticeable impact. Additionally, in both time periods, a majority of cases are never reported to the police. Out of 1000 cases, only 310 are reported and I would assume a similar percentage was true in the 18th century, due to reasons regarding purity and marriage mentioned

In colonial America, slaves faced higher rates of conviction for rape than whites did. In modern America, a woman’s place in society, economic status, and witnesses all affect whether a rapist is convicted. A man’s place in society may be even more important, as there are many politicians with accusations against them that would probably place many others in jail. There is also the consideration of the age of the victim when determining both reliability and punishment. In 1977 The United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman (often about age 12 or older) was a cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment. However, in a few states, including Louisiana, the death penalty was an option for those convicted of rape of a child. It wasn’t until the 2008 case Kennedy v. Louisiana that the United States outlawed the death penalty for all rape cases, and the decision was made only by a 5-4 majority (Kennedy v.