The ANIMALS FEEL PAIN petition to Government was written by Dave Strickson and is hosted free of charge at GoPetition.

The nation's highest court has set arguments on Wednesday on whether the death penalty for the crime of raping a child represents unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

It will be the second major death penalty case heard this year. In January, the justices considered the current lethal three-drug cocktail used in most U.S. executions.

A ruling is expected by late June on the challenge by two Kentucky death row inmates who argued the lethal injection method violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment by inflicting needless pain and suffering.

Executions in the United States last year fell to a 13-year low of 42, and have been temporarily halted since the Supreme Court agreed in late September to decide the lethal injection case.

The Supreme Court's review of death penalty-related cases comes amid a growing nationwide debate on capital punishment itself in one of the few democracies that still permit it.

The case involved an appeal by Patrick Kennedy of Louisiana, who was convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter and sentenced to death.

Of the more than 3,300 inmates on death row in America, Kennedy and another man convicted of child rape in Louisiana are the only two who did not commit murder.