The battle to appear tough on crime continued in the race for governor on Tuesday, as Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor proposed making repeat child molesters eligible for the death penalty in Georgia.

Taylor said that if elected he would push a constitutional amendment allowing juries to sentence second-time sex offenders to death if they rape or molest a child age 14 or younger.

"In Georgia, if you repeatedly rape and molest our children you will pay with your life," Taylor said at a candidate forum hosted by State Farm Insurance Co. It is the second anti-crime proposal this month from the Democrat. Earlier this month Taylor said he wanted to abolish parole for 19 violent crimes in Georgia.

Taylor's pitch came a day after Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue said he would seek almost $1 million in the state budget to hire 13 new investigators and computer forensic experts to crack down on Internet sex predators.

The amendments were timed to coincide with new ads from both men showcasing their muscle against sex offenders, who have fast become the bogeymen of the gubernatorial campaign.

Five other states - Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Florida and Montana - already have death penalty statutes for repeat child sex offenders, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. Taylor said Georgia should become the sixth. But there are questions about whether capital punishment in sex offense cases is constitutional.

Anne Emanuel, associate dean at Georgia State University's law school and chairwoman of a recent study of the state's death penalty, said that applying capital punishment to a crime that does not involve a death remains "constitutionally suspect."

In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the death penalty of a Georgia man convicted of raping an adult woman, describing the penalty as "excessive."

No one has been executed for committing a sex offense that did not also involve a death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 30 years ago. In Louisiana, one inmate is on death row in for raping an eight-year girl. A challenge to that case is moving through Louisiana's courts.

"Mark Taylor was silent when we passed the nation's strongest laws against sexual predators," Perdue spokesman Derrick Dickey said. "Nobody believes Mark Taylor and his election-year sound bites anymore."

Perdue also spoke at the forum but the two managed to avoid crossing paths. Taylor entered just as Perdue was leaving. It was the first joint appearance for the candidates since Taylor won the July 18 Democratic primary.

The death penalty proposal was part of the Child Protection Act of 2007 that Taylor said he would introduce if elected. The bill would also block the sale of violent video games and make it illegal to knowingly send pornographic e-mail to minors. Taylor said he also wants to use the state's purchasing power to negotiate cheaper prices for parents of parental control software.

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