Did solicitor general goof in child rape case?

Certainly the Justice Department's solicitor general's office is accustomed to sending briefs to the Supreme Court. That's its raison d'etre. Still, it apparently managed to ignore a federal interest in a case that last week produced a major death penalty ruling.

The result: A red-faced White House, and an admission by President Bush's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, that the administration was "looking at options" to correct whatever errors may have been made.

Here's the story so far: The Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for raping a child was unconstitutional. The New York Times reported today that none of the 10 briefs filed in the case mentioned a bill Bush signed last September adding child rape to the military death penalty.

And, the newspaper said, the office of the solicitor general did not file a brief in the case, "evidently having concluded" that the federal government had no stake in the case, in which the court ruled that a Louisiana law providing for the death penalty in instances of child rape was unconstitutional.

Perino, asked this morning about the report, said Bush disagreed with the ruling and believed that the death penalty should not be excluded as a punishment for child rape. She said the White House found the report "disturbing."

And down Pennsylvania Avenue, officials at the Justice Department, she said, were trying to figure out what steps they could take "to correct that error" -- and to figure out what went wrong.

She would not say whether the turnover at the solicitor general's office -- Paul Clement has stepped down as solicitor general, and the position has not been filled with a permanent replacement -- was to blame.

--James Gerstenzang

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images