WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court reaffirmed its June ruling that capital punishment is unconstitutional for crimes short of murder, rejecting pleas from the Bush administration and the state of Louisiana to reconsider in light of new information.

In June, the court ruled, 5 to 4, that a Louisiana statute providing the death penalty for raping a child under age 12 violated the Eighth Amendment, which bans "cruel and unusual punishments." The case dealt with the March 1998 rape by Patrick Kennedy of his 8-year-old stepdaughter....