The Alabama House Judiciary Committee has advanced legislation that will act as a tough deterrent against child rapists in the Yellowhammer State.

HB49, introduced by State Rep. Matt Simpson (R-Daphne), requires that a person 18 years of age or older convicted of rape in the first degree, or sodomy in the first degree when the victim is less than six years of age, shall be punished to either death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It also states that if the offending person is less than 18 years of age sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or life.

“I think the death penalty is not used enough,” Simpson said in a statement to Yellowhammer News last year. “I don’t think anyone who commits offenses on a child this young can be rehabilitated.”

RELATED: State Rep. Matt Simpson: Child rapists deserve death penalty because they can’t ‘be rehabilitated’

During the committee hearing Wednesday, Simpson said Alabama would be following the lead of other Republican states on this issue.

“There is a movement throughout other states to change the 2008 case of Kennedy versus Louisiana,” Simpson explained. “In that case, the Supreme Court held that you could not issue the death penalty for cases that did not involve death themselves, meaning it had to be a murder case for you to impose the death penalty in 2023. Florida challenged that and passed a law similar to where if a child was a victim of rape or sodomy, the punishment could be death. That passed in Florida in 2023 and 2024 in Tennessee, a similar bill passed.”

When asked if Florida has faced any legal challenges to their version of that law, Simpson explained why it hasn’t gotten to that point as of yet.

“So, the short answer is no,” he said. “But what will have to happen is someone actually gets convicted, someone to go through the process of challenging that statute to have standing to challenge it from there. I anticipate Florida will be the first one to get the challenge. If Florida, when they make their brief to the Supreme Court, if they can say, ‘Well look at Tennessee. Look at Alabama. Look at these six other states that are doing this as well:’ We can support Florida.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee