A quick round-up before Kennedy capital child rape argument

At 10am today, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear argument in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), the highly-anticipated case examining the constitutionality of imposing the death penalty for child rape. 

Both the mainstream media and bloggers have given the case considerable attention recently, with notable new pieces from CNN and Bloomberg and with new posts from Capital Defense Weekly and Concurring Opinions and The Faculty Lounge.  In the blogosphere, the most consistent and complete coverage of the Kennedy case has been over at Sex Crimes, which has a number of new posts on the case and has this fantastic resource page on the case.

For lots of reasons, I think that the Kennedy case could be very jurisprudentially consequential and that today's oral argument might well provide some insights into a case that I consider to be very challenging on the merits.  Some of my thoughts on the Kennedy case and the issues it raises can be found in these prior posts:

• SCOTUS Kennedy capital child rape case buzz starting
• Effective reflections on Baze and Kennedy
• Do Baze and Kennedy and big SCOTUS cases depend on just one Justice?
• Show me support for capital child rape laws
• Is the editorial board of the Denver Post omniscient or just obtuse?
• Looking at capital child rape's constitutionality through the Atkins/Roper lens
• Resource page on Kennedy and the opaqueness of child rape statistics
• A better poster child for the death penalty for child rape
• Debating the policy arguments around capital child rape
• Could there be symbolic and practical value in making repeat child rape a capital offense?
• A strong argument for commuting Patrick Kennedy's death sentence