Gov. Ron DeSantis is on track to set a record that will make people around the world wonder what is wrong with Florida.
Read more Orange County to buy $13M hotel next to jail as possible homeless housing
He has already seen 36 executions, more than any other Florida governor since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976. He leads the nation at the moment in this exceedingly dubious category.
The media refers to the years since 1976 as the modern era of executions. It began four years after the court, in a welter of split opinions, held capital punishment to be unconstitutional throughout the nation. Florida was the first state to enact new legislation addressing legal objections.
DeSantis is also on pace to exceed other dubious distinctions.
If he continues sending two people every month to the death chamber through January (he’ll have to move fast before the Jan. 5 inauguration of his successor), he will set an all-time Florida record of 48 executions under any governor, going back almost to the Civil War.
Nearing an all-time record
The state keeps no count of those carried out since 1924 when it assumed the responsibility from sheriffs.
The state keeps no count of those carried out before 1924 when it assumed the responsibility from sheriffs. State archives do, however, list death warrants signed during that period: 357 between 1869 and 1924, when it was extremely rare for the courts to intervene. That makes it safe to assume that almost all of those were carried out. If every warrent signed by Gov. Albert Gilchrist (43 in all, from 1909 through 1912) resulted in an execution, DeSantis is on pace to execute three more than Gilchrist.
None of DeSantis’ modern predecessors executed anyone as old as Dusty Ray Spencer, who was 74 when he died June 25 for killing his wife 34 years ago.
No one that old has been executed in the U.S., according to available records,since an 82-year-old Alabama inmate who died in 2018 for the mail-bomb murder of a federal judge.
Another 74-year-old, Dennis Sochor, is scheduled to die July 14 for strangling an 18-year-old woman in Broward County on New Year’s Eve 1981.
DeSantis has ordered up another Florida record, a July 28 execution for 80-year-old Dominick Occhione, who has been on death row 39 years. He killed the parents of a former girlfriend in Pasco County.
Occhione may not be the last octogenarian whom DeSantis executes.
Florida’s death row roster lists four other men who are already 80 and one who’s 79. They are among 31 condemned men older than 70 of the 242 inmates remaining on death row. Most of them have been there almost as long.
None is a danger to society. Whether they are executed or DeSantis allows himself to commute a sentence to life, they are locked up until they die.
Read more ABC fights back against FCC regulators in dispute over ‘The View’ and equal time rules
Condemned on a 7-5 vote
The jury vote to condemn Occhione was 7 to 5, fewer than the eight-vote minimum in current law in Florida. If that many jurors had misgivings, so should the governor.
Most advanced nations consider execution itself to be barbaric, leaving the U.S. in the company of outliers like China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But most those countries are also notable for carrying out executions swiftly, with little chance for appeal. It is outlandish to execute people so old after courts have taken so long to manage their appeals. Among the democracies that still retain capital punishment, only Japan, Singapore and Taiwan are actively carrying out executions.
DeSantis and other hard-liners contend that the process should be faster, but hard facts refute it. Florida shamefully leads the nation in 30 exonerations, proved innocence, of people on death row. A swifter “justice” system would have killed some of them. It’s probable that other innocent people are on death row.
With each death warrant, DeSantis writes perfunctorily that he has found no reason for clemency. It doesn’t seem that he’s looking very hard. Neither does he explain why he chose a particular inmate from among others who have run out of appeals.
The Florida Constitution cloaks everything about executive clemency in unhealthy secrecy. That should end.
Clemency and commutations
No Florida governor has commuted a death sentence, which requires the consent of a majority of the elected Cabinet, since Bob Graham last did so in 1983.
Governors used to be more conscientious about clemency. According to research by Margaret Vandiver, a Florida-educated criminologist and professor emerita at the University of Memphis, there were 59 commutations between 1924 and 1966, when an unofficial death penalty moratorium began. That was more than a fourth of the 195 executions.
LeRoy Collins, governor from 1955 through 1960, carried out 29 executions but spared nine people, nearly one-fourth of those whose cases came to his desk.
He told of having mentioned to his staff that he should see an execution. They persuaded him not to, saying “It’s something a governor should not see.” If so, Collins concluded, then it was something no one should do. He spent the rest of his life trying to abolish it.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to [email protected].
Read more Commentary: Hispanic community deserves access to lifesaving information