Category Archive for : ‘STATE BY STATE GEORGIA’

ALBANY, Ga. – Three defendants entered guilty pleas in federal court today resulting from three separate Project Safe Childhood investigations centered in Southwest Georgia.

Larry Dewayne Goldsmith, 23, of Indianapolis, Indiana, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor and faces a minimum of ten years up to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment to be followed by at least five years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Jawara Kitt, 29, of Albany, pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child sexual abuse material and faces

Patrick Kennedy, 43, raped an 8 year old girl and now the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that he may be executed for the rape.  Both sides say the sentence could expand a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.  The high court said then that its ruling applied only to adult victims.  Louisiana law allows the death penalty for the aggravated rape of someone less than 12 years old.  Kennedy was convicted in 2003 of

Newsday

Lawmakers across the country are doling out tougher punishments for sex offenders – fromsatellite tracking to the death penalty – but a handful of states are starting to ease up onpenalties in cases of youths arrested for sex. Laws enacted this year in Connecticut, Florida,Indiana and Texas, and a bill waiting for the governor’s approval in Illinois, try to draw clearerdistinctions between sexual predators and adolescents who pose less of a risk, such as those caughtin the so-called Romeo and Juliet relationships. Even when adolescents are only a few yearsapart,