DeSantis weakens Florida death-penalty rules after Parkland. This is revenge, not justice | Opinion

Florida slid backward on Thursday.

The Sunshine State will now have the lowest bar in the nation for imposing the death penalty. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that allows an 8-4 vote of a jury to inflict society’s most terrible of punishments.

But Florida also has the highest number of exonerations in the country, with 30 people since 1973 wrongfully convicted and sent to Death Row, only to be cleared years later. The next closest states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, are Illinois with 22 and Texas with 16.

So let’s get this straight. Florida will be easiest place in the nation in which a jury can punish someone by condemning them to be killed. And Florida remains the No. 1 place where we get Death Row convictions wrong.

That’s a prescription for a nightmarish Florida, a place where the laws increase the likelihood that we will inflict the death penalty on an innocent person. That’s something that any state should shrink from, rather than embrace.

Cruz gets life

The reason for this move is the Parkland shooter’s case. Seventeen people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and yet the shooter did not get the death penalty because there was a 9-12 vote rather than a unanimous death recommendation, which had been the law up until now.

It was a terrible outcome for the families of the victims, an unfathomable injustice for them that the shooter remained alive while their loved ones were dead. They suffered through a trial only to see a life sentence imposed. Some questioned what the penalty is for, if not that kind of case.

But Florida’s reaction is little more than bloodlust cloaked in law, fueled by a governor with presidential ambitions.

It should be hard to impose the death penalty. Every other state in the nation, except one, requires a unanimous vote. That other state is Alabama and even then, it’s a 10-2 vote, not 8-4.

There is good reason for the high bar, and that’s the worry about arbitrary and unfair application of the death penalty, especially when it comes to poor and Black people. A unanimous jury is one way to build in a cushion against that ultimate injustice.

Judicial override

Florida has required an unanimous jury since 2016, but in 2020, the Florida Supreme Court, in a non-binding opinion, opened the door for legislators to reduce the requirement. And after the Parkland verdict, DeSantis vowed to change the law.

The new law leaves in place the ability for a judge to override the death penalty. It’s likely to be challenged in court.

But its passage cannot be separated from the governor and his White House hopes. In his drive for a list of wins from which to spring to Washington, he has pushed through a near-total abortion ban, fought publicly with Disney, decried “wokeness” in schools and loosened gun restrictions. He has also cranked up Florida’s executions. In his first term, he signed two death warrants. In the handful of months in his second term, he has already signed three, with two people executed so far.

The outcome of the Parkland case is gut-wrenching. But the answer isn’t exacting revenge by lowering the bar in other cases. In the process, DeSantis and the Republican Legislature are taking Florida backward in time to a place where the standards for justice are lower and the death penalty is more likely to be meted out in error.