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Governor Ron DeSantis is clear: he wants to change the law to make it easier to apply the death penalty to convicted felons. The Republican stated that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
DeSantis argued that a supermajority of jurors in trials should be sufficient for the implementation of death sentences. “If just one juror vetoes it, then you end up not getting the sentence,” explained the governor.
Today’s announcement comes days after he publicly unveiled his goal that Florida should not require a unanimous jury to impose a death sentence.
During the Florida Sheriffs’ Association Conference, DeSantis added that “maybe eight out of 12 have to agree, or something, but we can’t be in a situation where one person can just derail this.”
“DeSantis was expressing his frustration with the decision of a jury in November to sentence Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, to life in prison rather than handing down the death penalty,” Reason added.
DeSantis said that Florida was a law and order state, and stressed that, in his opinion, the use of social services to fix crime problems was a disastrous effort in other parts of the country, instead of allowing the police to do the job.
Death penalty in Florida
Prior to 2016, the state of Florida allowed juries to impose the death penalty with a minimum majority of 7 to 5. However, this changed after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the jury-recommended death sentence must be unanimous.
As Reason stated, DeSantis’ move to seek to return to a situation where non-unanimous juries can impose the death penalty would be an outlier in terms of capital punishment policy. “Of the 30 states where the death penalty remains on the books, only Alabama allows a judge to impose the sentence with less than a majority of the jury agreeing,” the news outlet detailed.
Williams Perdomo es periodista y escritor, especializado en las fuentes Política y Cultura.