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MIAMI — Florida became the state with the minimum standard for imposing the death penalty under a law signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday, allowing jurors to recommend the death penalty without a unanimous vote.
The change, which allows jurors to recommend the death penalty by an 8-to-4 vote, is the latest addition to the Florida state that sentenced the shooter who killed 17 people in a 2018 shooting to life in prison without parole. It was inspired by last year’s jury decision. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The jury in the case voted 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty, but the judge could not impose the death penalty unless all jurors voted in favor.
DeSantis, who was traveling across the country ahead of the anticipated 2024 Republican presidential campaign, received and quietly signed the law in his office on Thursday.
“If a defendant sentenced to death is found guilty by a unanimous jury, a single juror cannot reject the death sentence,” he said in a statement.
Lawmakers put forward a number of DeSantis’ legislative priorities at the annual session, which is set to conclude in two weeks. Attempting to appeal to Republican donors and voters with the message that his aggressive approach to running Florida will work nationally, the move will address high-profile social issues that have stuck with the governor. Last week, Mr. DeSantis signed his six-week abortion ban. This is his one of the most restrictive in the country.
Among the bills currently facing his desk would allow the death penalty to be imposed on defendants convicted of child sexual abuse.
Almost all of the 27 states that allow the death penalty require a unanimous jury vote on sentencing. Florida’s new threshold is lower than the 10-to-2 majority required by Alabama. In Indiana and Missouri, a judge can rule if the jury is split.
At least 30 inmates sentenced to death in Florida have been acquitted more than in any other state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research organization against the death penalty. More than 300 inmates remain on death row in Florida.
“It must be difficult to put someone to death,” said former Orlando Democratic Senator Randolph Bracey, who backed a bill that would require a unanimous jury vote to pass a death sentence in 2017. “I think Florida has the highest false conviction rate in the country,” he added. “We needed that threshold to make sure we were doing the right thing.”
He said he expects the new law to be challenged in court.
Last October, many victims’ families were outraged for saving the lives of the Parkland High School shooter. They felt that suffering a harsh trial would at least result in an almost certain death sentence. But the jury’s 9-to-3 death penalty vote failed to meet the state’s unanimous requirement, leaving some families to blame for the mass shooting that killed 14 teenagers and three adults. People have come to publicly question what the death penalty is for, if not for.
One juror later described a frustratingly truncated deliberation in which the majority could hardly engage jurors determined to oppose the death because they thought the shooter was psychotic.
Shortly after, Republican DeSantis and other state legislators vowed to overturn a 2017 Florida law requiring a unanimous jury vote. It follows a ruling that overruled the state’s previous requirement to require only a simple majority vote (7 of 12 jurors) to impose the death penalty within the court.
In 2020, the state Supreme Court, which had a more conservative judge at the time, issued a non-binding opinion saying it could overturn the unanimous requirement. did not address the issue until he avoided the death penalty.
Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for causing injuries at a school on February 14, 2018. A jury of seven men and five women had to consider aggravating factors to justify the death penalty and mitigating circumstances to save his life.
The new law, which eliminates the unanimous vote requirement, has won bipartisan support in Florida’s legislature, which is dominated by Republicans in both the House and Senate. Some Republicans voted against it, while some Democrats voted for it, including representatives from liberal Broward County, where Parkland is located.
Riverview state representative Mike Beltran, an attorney and one of the Republicans who opposed the action, believes the Parkland gunman should have been sentenced to death, but state law requires a unanimous jury to He said they should continue to demand the death penalty.
Mr. DeSantis signed two death warrants during his first term, which is less than previous Republican governors. Since his re-election in 2022, he has signed three more contracts. Of those, two executions were carried out on him, the third he is scheduled for in May.
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