MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a tough-on-crime agenda ahead of the upcoming legislative session, including proposals to expand the death penalty to certain types of sex crimes and mandating life sentences for people convicted of selling fentanyl that looks like candy to children.
“We want to make sure that we cement our reputation as being a law-and-order state and take actions as necessary to help further protect the people of the state of Florida,” he said during a news conference Thursday at the Miami Police Benevolent Association hall. Police officers from several Miami-Dade cities, including Hialeah and Coral Gables, were in the audience.
The governor, reiterating comments he made earlier this week, said a supermajority vote by a jury should be sufficient to impose the death penalty. That would make Florida the second state to allow nonunanimous jury votes for the death penalty, in addition to Alabama.
DeSantis expanded that proposal, saying child sexual abuse — specifically rape — should also be punishable by death, with a minimum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“These people don’t care. They are unrepentant,” DeSantis said. “… I believe the only appropriate punishment that would be commensurate to that would be capital.”
The room responded with applause.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 ruled that the death penalty can only be applicable in the instance of murder.
DeSantis said the state will pursue child sexual abuse cases that seek the death penalty and could potentially reach the Supreme Court.
“We do not believe the Supreme Court, in its current iteration, would uphold it,” he said of the 2008 ruling, “and so we are going to be exploring ways to facilitate some capital trials if you have the worst of the worst.”...
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