TALHASSEE – People sentenced to death in Florida could be executed by squads, nitrogen gas or other means under a bill expanding Florida death penalty tactics.
In Florida, fatal injections or electric shocks are possible, and fatal injections default to death.
But the bill proposed by Senator Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, allows someone to be carried out in a “unconstitutional, yet cruel and non-anomalous way” if the Florida Department of Corrections is unable to obtain the chemicals needed for lethal injections, or if the chemicals that obtain them are “inevitable.”
Martin’s bill passed its first committee on Tuesday. R-Largo Rep. Berny Jacques is scheduled to present his companion bill in the House on Wednesday.
The proposed changes come as Gov. Ron DeSantis resumed his execution after many years of nothing to be done. Since 2023, Florida has executed nine people. The 10th man is due to die in April.
Martin described his bill’s safeguards against future shortages in fatal injection drugs. He said the Department of Corrections does not show current supply issues.
“We need to do the right thing and make sure the law is met,” Martin said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never found that certain enforcement methods are unconstitutional, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Of the more than 1,600 executions in the modern era of death penalty, more than 88% have been carried out by fatal injections. 20 were carried out by deadly gas or fire squads. Only a handful of states allow these tactics, according to the Death Penalty Center database.
However, drug companies have resisted using drugs to kill people by halting their products or shutting down their manufacturing industry altogether, so some states have turned their eyes to lesser-used tactics for execution.
Earlier this month, South Carolina fired the squad and executed the man. South Carolina struggled to carry the death penalty for 13 years, according to the Associated Press, as the state couldn’t get the medicine needed for a fatal injection.
And last year, Alabama became the country’s first state to execute with nitrite. The state has since carried out two other gas enforcements.
Maria Deliberato, executive director of the Florida penalty alternative, said she expects a lawsuit if Florida chooses a new method of enforcement, saying that courts in other states that approve certain practice methods do not necessarily apply to Florida.
But Martin, sponsoring the Senate bill, said, “I don’t think there’s a good public policy written with the lawsuit in mind.”
In 2023, Florida set the lowest death penalty threshold in the country by reducing the number of ju judges needed to agree to sentence eight of the 12 to death. This change was a priority for Desantis.
That same year, DeSantis also signed a bill that would allow child rapists to be executed, challenging existing US Supreme Court precedents.
This year, lawmakers are pursuing a bill that allows the death penalty for certain human trafficking cases, and have already passed a bill that requires the death penalty for immigrants in countries who commit capital crimes.
