Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has recently proposed major changes to his state’s criminal justice laws. On Thursday, DeSantis announced the proposals that would make child rapists eligible for execution, allowing death penalty without unanimous jury.
The governor cited the case of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz, who was spared from execution last year after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on capital punishment. DeSantis said that only the vast majority or a supermajority of a jury should be required to issue a death sentence. DeSantis could seek a change to allow recommendations of eight of 12 jurors.
“One juror should not be able to veto that,” DeSantis said at the Miami Police Benevolent Association. “I don’t think justice was served in that case. If you’re going to have capital [punishment], you have to administer it to the worst of the worst crimes.”
Many family members of the Parkland victims criticized the jury’s decision with Nikolas Cruz, feeling the school shooter deserved the death penalty without question. Dr. Ilan Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter was murdered by Cruz, said he was “disgusted with those jurors” and “disgusted with this system. What do we have the death penalty for? What is the purpose of it?” Alhadeff stated after Cruz received a life sentence in prison.
DeSantis has also aid he intends to make convicted child rapists eligible for the death sentence. If they do no face the death penalty the governor at minimum wants child rapists to face life in prison. DeSantis also wants legislators to expand the list of sex offenses that would make inmates ineligible for gain time, meaning they could not obtain early release.
DeSantis further stated, “They (sexual predators) will do whatever they can to satiate themselves at the expense of very, very vulnerable people. I believe the only appropriate punishment that would be commensurate to that would be capital.”
“We understand that it will be challenged, but I think it’s right for us to challenge … a decision that wasn’t well thought out, was very narrowly decided,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis also called for harsher punishments for fentanyl trafficking when the drug resembles a piece of candy. He seeks to strengthen bail laws by limiting who is eligible for release before their first appearance and to require police to alert the National Missing and Unidentified Person’s System about all missing persons.
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, held that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment prevented the death penalty for child rapists, based in part on a 1977 decision. Florida currently has 301 prisoners on death row. The state has executed nearly 100 inmates since the late 1970s.
Governor Ron DeSantis is leading the way by taking a hard on crime stance in an attempt to clean up the streets of America which have become ridden with lawlessness in recent years. This is a sharp contrast to the leadership in blue states, such as California, who seemingly enable crime. Hopefully, leaders of other conservative leaning takes will follow suite and make America a safer place again.
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