Florida death penalty policy amendment and changes
The death penalty also referred to as capital punishment involves execution of a condemned prisoner by the state or government as a form of reprimand for a crime. This an extreme punishment for capital crimes and offenses based on their amgnitute.it is however applicable for serious crimes such as murder, aggravated cases of child abuse, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking amongst others. Despite being one of the toughest forms of punishment, 60% of the world’s population still practice capital punishment. According to statistics, in the US, 29 states still practice the capital punishment, Florida being among them, Florida department of corrections (2019, June 15) Over the years, policy amendments have been enacted to change the death penalty however it is still practices to the modern day.
Capital punishment was officially abolished in the US following a declaration by the US Supreme Court that it was a violation of the law. However it was reinstated in 1976, six months later following court reviews on the abolishment. Florida conducted its first execution in 1979 under the new statutes. Since then, 99 convicted prisoners have faced the death penalty since then, the latest of these execution was conducted in 2019, while 339 are still awaiting the execution in the prisons death row unit (Bohm, 2017)The state have recently switched its mode of execution from electrocution to the use of lethal injection following the electrocution of Allen lee Davis that was marred with a lot of controversies.
Primarily, the death penalty has undergone several amendments and changes over the years. The Timely Justice Act was enacted in June, 2013 following a signatory by the governor Rick Scott. This was meant to speed up the time frame between the appeals and executions. Moreover, in January 2014, in the case between Hurst versus the state of Florida, the United State Supreme Court altered the death penalty law. In March the same year, the US Supreme Court over ruled Florida’s death penalty as a violation of the sixth amendment basing their argument on that the determination of sentence was made by judge rather than the jury (Radelet, 2017)Thus, this was followed by the rewriting of the laws whereby the requirements were 10 out of the 12 unanimous jurors to vote in favor of the death penalty.in the event that less than 10 jurors were in favor of the ruling, the death sentence was immediately changed to life imprisonment (Radelet, 2017)
The Florida legislature passed a new statute legalizing the death sentence in March 2017, to be decide by the jury whereby 10 jurors supermajority passed on the death sentence. However, if less than 10 jurors were in favor of the capital punishment a life sentence is imposed. This was however without challenge when the Florida court struck down the by 5-2 vote (Bohm, 2017). More amendments were issued whereby in case the jury fails to agree on a verdict, a life sentence is offered with no retrial even if one of jury members is against the death sentence. This laws has been applicable whereby the jury ruled in favor of a death sentence in 2019, making it Florida most recent execution. In light of this there are many inmates that have received clemency by the state Governor (Bohm, 2017).
The state of Florida has made gradual progress in matters capital punishment. Firstly, the adoption of lethal injection eased the execution process. Secondly the adoption of the unanimous jury decision made the death penalty decision open to more jurors compared to when it was a sole decision of the judge presiding over the case. Following these amendments, a lot of death penalties have been reverted back to receiving new sentencing to spare the families the agony. This however is not an excuse for the heinous acts they committed that landed them in the death row. A lot more is yet to happen in future as more amendments and bills continue to be passed in the wake of ending capital punishment in Florida and other states in the US.
References
Bohm, R. M. (Ed.). (2017). the death penalty today. CRC Press.
Radelet, M., & Cohen, G. B. (2017). The predictable disarray: ignoring the jury in Florida death penalty cases. Available at SSRN 2906342.
Florida Department of Corrections. “Execution List – Florida Department of Corrections”. Dc.state.fl.us. (Accessed 27 June 2020)
