Several Florida lawmakers point out that the death penalty in the state has not been applied in cases where it is most appropriate, and point to several cases where the murderer escapes the maximum sentence due to the will of a minority on the jury.
The most dramatic case was that of the Parkland murderer, which led to changes in the death penalty law.
Current law requires the jury to vote unanimously in favor of the death penalty. But that hasn’t always been the case: Before a Supreme Court ruling in a 2016 Florida case, a jury could recommend the death penalty by a 7-5 majority.
Now, with the backing of Gov. Ron DeSantis, some lawmakers are proposing to move to an 8-4 vote. Some families of Parkland victims have traveled to Tallahassee to support the change.
Four and a half years after losing loved ones in the most violent ways, these families have spent months in a courtroom reliving the horror of their deaths, all seeking justice, which they say not have obtained.
After handing down the life sentence and rejecting the death sentence for the convicted Parkland murderer, the jury foreman said a panel member disagreed with the death penalty and in convinced two others.
Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican senator, argues that “you really have to avoid jurors who are activists, who go to the jury not to do justice but to oppose the death penalty”.
Senator Blaise Ingoglia is the sponsor of a bill to eliminate the unanimity requirement for the death penalty in Florida.
Danny Perez, a Republican state representative, assures that “it prevents that if there is a dishonest person who does not have the mentality that he must have to be on a jury, that single person does not will not have the power”.
Meadow Pollack’s brother Hunter Pollack wonders ‘how can someone shoot my sister and then finish her off at point-blank range, that’s something out of a horror movie’, the brother says of Meadow Pollack who was about to graduate.
Tony Montalto, Gina Montalto’s father, assures that “this change has to happen because our children and our teachers in Parkland have been cheated by so many elements of the system”, said Gina Montalto’s father.
There they heard from families of Parkland victims who traveled to Tallahassee to support the bill, which now includes an amendment that also does not allow a judge to override a jury’s recommendation. and to impose life imprisonment when a jury returns a verdict of death.