WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is considering whether someone may be executed for raping a child, a case that balances concerns about the death penalty with tougher sanctions for child sex crimes.

Only two people, both in Louisiana, are on death row in the United States for raping a child without also killing their victim.

The justices were to hear arguments Wednesday about whether the Constitution allows executions for rapes that do not also involve murder.

Separately, the court also was expected to issue opinions in unrelated cases.

The lawyers for one inmate, Patrick Kennedy, say the death penalty for child rape violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Kennedy, 43, was convicted of raping his 8 year-old stepdaughter at their home in the New Orleans suburb of Harvey in 1998.

No one has been executed for anything other than murder in 44 years. In 1977, the court ruled out executions for rapists whose victims are adults.

It left open the issue of whether raping a child could lead to death.

Executions are on hold across the United States while the court considers the constitutionality of the way states use lethal injections to put prisoners to death.

Besides Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also allow executions of someone convicted of child rape, although the latter four states never have applied the death penalty to child rapists. Missouri, led by Gov. Matt Blunt, is considering a similar law.

Those states say there is a trend toward toughening penalties for people who victimize children and contend that death is an appropriate punishment for so horrific a crime as the rape of a child.

Kennedy's lawyers say more states have rejected the death penalty for child rapists and that the reasoning of the court's 1977 decision - that death is an excessive penalty for a rapist who does not also kill - should apply even when the victim is a child.

Groups that work to prevent sexual violence also have sided with Kennedy. They say victims often know their attacker - a relative or family friend - and that more rapes will go unreported if children have to worry that their words might lead to an execution.

The other inmate, Richard Davis, was sentenced to death in the Shreveport area in December. He has just begun appealing his conviction and sentence.