TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Several bills passed during this legislative meeting could expand the state’s use of the death penalty. This is because Florida is preparing to run its sixth this year. Without changes, there will be as many people as they will run compared to everything in 2023.
For one thing, the state may have immediate additional options other than a deadly injection or an electric chair.
Desantis signs two new bills to Winter Haven
“If current methods are not available or proved unconstitutional, the state can resort to methods that are not considered unconstitutional,” state Assemblyman Bernie Jack said.
Jack proposed measures that could open the door to options such as deadly gas and fire squads. The U.S. Supreme Court does not consider these uses unconstitutional.
Jack also worked on the House version of Senate Bill 1804. This allowed prosecutors to green light to seek death penalty for trafficking in people under the age of 12 with mental disabilities.
“It should not be that the perpetrator, the vicious individual, will live with that child for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Maria Deliberato is the Florida executive director of the death penalty alternative.
“I don’t think there’s any evidence that this makes us safer,” Deliberat said.
The organization’s leader said life without parole sentences would make it easier to close to victims and loved ones. She also said the group has members who are either victims or victims of a heinous crime.
“I certainly understand their kind of visceral desire,” Deliberat said. “It really, in the long run, it makes no economic or moral meaning when you’re wrong many times and can safely house people at the Department of Corrections for the rest of your natural life without occurring.”
The Pew Research Center finds that most Americans support the death penalty, but they believe there is risk.
Two other bills allow ju judges to consider attempted political assassinations and death penalties for capital crimes committed at schools, churches or public meetings.
Earlier this year, DeSantis was convicted of first-degree murder after signing a bill that would require death sentences for people in the country illegally. In 2023, the governor signed a law that ended the unanimous juj requirement for the death penalty.
