On Thursday, paramedics were called to an Oklahoma City home in response to a 2-year-old girl who was not breathing. First responders treated the toddler at the scene and transported her to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

While the death of any child is terrible, what the medical examiner found when examining the child's body was truly horrific. The toddler's death was the result of massive internal bleeding and trauma, her injuries consistent with sexual assault. In other words, the little girl had been raped to death.

After being informed of the nature of the toddler's fatal injuries, police learned that a man had been alone with the child shortly before her death, and that he left the residence after the family called 9-1-1, but before emergency workers could arrive.

The day after the 2-year-old's death, police arrested Justin Williams Lawson, 22. He is currently held in the Oklahoma County Jail on complaints of first degree rape and first degree murder.

If ultimately charged and convicted, the prospects for the suspect in this case are not good.

In general, both first degree rape and first degree murder are punishable by life in prison. However, under the circumstances--a death that occurred as the result of sexual assault--the defendant could face the death penalty.

In fact, Oklahoma law states that first degree rape is punishable by death; however, the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that a person cannot be executed for the rape of a child in which the victim did not die. Capital punishment, the court ruled, is only permissible for aggravated murder.

Oklahoma's aggravating factors that allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty against a murder defendant include the following:

  • The defendant was previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person.
  • The defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person.
  • The person committed the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration or employed another to commit the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration.
  • The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.
  • The murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or prosecution.
  • The murder was committed by a person while serving a sentence of imprisonment on conviction of a felony.
  • The existence of a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.

Most people would likely agree that raping a toddler, resulting in fatal injuries, is "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel." In fact, Oklahoma recently executed an inmate who had been convicted of fatally raping an 11-month-old girl. Charles Warner, one of the inmates who filed a lethal injection lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, was executed in January, becoming the first Oklahoma inmate to be put to death since the "botched" execution of his fellow plaintiff, Clayton Lockett, in April 2014.

Warner was twice convicted of the baby's rape and murder. The first time, he was sentenced to death for the girl's murder and given 999 years in prison for her rape. He won an appeal, and was subsequently convicted again. The jury still recommended death as punishment for the baby's murder, but only 75 years for rape.