Republican governor for Florida Ron DeSantis is going all out to make sure criminals convicted of raping children get the death penalty.
The crime bills he is pushing advocates the death penalty for people who commit sexual assault on children under 12 and allows juries to recommend the death penalty by a vote of 8 to 4.
In an interview with Good Morning Orlando he said, “We are authorizing the death penalty for child rapists.”
This goes against the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that states that the eighth amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment which includes imposing the death penalty for child rapists or any crime in which the victim did not die.
“My view is, you have some of these people that will be serial rapists of six, seven-year-old kids. I think the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment when you have situations like that.”
Ron DeSantis On Parkland Massacre
Ron DeSantis quoted the Parkland massacre where Nikolas Cruz was sentenced to life in prison after murdering 17 people in a school and injuring 17 others in a shooting incident.
“What happened with the Parkland case, it was an 11-1 vote to give the death penalty for the perpetrator of the Parkland massacre. So, you had one juror that held out and the problem is if you do it like that, if one juror just objects to the death penalty you can nullify a death sentence.”
“So, when you say it’s not unanimous, I think it’s a protection against nullification. Look, if you don’t support capital punishment, I respect that, but the way to deal with that is to try to get the laws changed in the state through the democratic process – not to be on a jury and to nullify capital punishment,” he said.
DeSantis is expected to run for president in 2024. At an event in Ohio last week he said, “We reject soft-on-crime policies like eliminating cash bail or jailbreak legislation that lets dangerous criminals out of jail before they have finished their sentence. We see the plague across the country of left-wing district attorneys getting elected.”
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