Bills filed in both the Florida Senate and House that would allow the death penalty for child rapist
A child being raped could easily be seen by most of society as the most heinous of all crimes. Does it deserve the death penalty? Florida Action Committee does not take a stand on this issue, but there are some facts to consider.
Separate bills in both the house and senate have been filed that would eliminate the requirement for unanimous verdicts by juries to implement the death penalty. A jury vote of 8 to 4 would be the minimum vote required to impose the death penalty.
According to ABC First Coast News, public defender Teri Sopp thinks these bills are a bad idea as “Florida leads the nation with 30 innocent people exonerated from death row since 1973 – one third of the number of people who have been executed…It (the death penalty) is administered unfairly to persons of color, persons with intellectual disabilities, and persons with mental illness.”
Florida statutes does NOT allow courts to consider dementia.
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The main difference in Capital punishment (death) and non-capital punishment, at least in the State of Florida, is who pays for the 20-30 years of automatic appeals required by both the Florida and US Supreme courts before you can get around to killing someone. I believe I read somewhere that the average cost for life in prison in Florida was $1M a few years ago. Same person on death row cost over $2M.
It will make no difference in the number of children who are raped.
I’ve read both bills. They appear to be unconstitutional (for one reason) because they violate the separation of powers doctrine. In the bills, the Legislature has specifically instructed trial courts to ignore existing caselaw of the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court, which is beyond the Legislature’s authority.
Sadly, the twisted individuals who commit such acts will now have no motivation to spare the lives of these young victims. Murders and disappearances will likely go up.
The death penalty once done cannot be undone . The same could be said of the many cases of innocent people that have spent 20 or thirty years imprisoned unjustly. Any time spent is terrible. But it happens way too often. These terrible crimes like rape must be punished but if they are willing to make it capital then they must be willing to accept the same punishment of a death sentence if they sentence an innocent person to death.
this is all DeSantis. he said as much in a couple of his speeches. Life in prison or the death penalty. I had no children involved in my case but who’s to say that he doesn’t count anyone under 18 as a child? even those that lied about their age? And people want him to run for president. if he wins look for this all over the country and possibly worse restrictions
I don’t see why FAC doesn’t take a position on this issue; It certainly appears that they should stand against these bills.