"Texas, the equivalent of a fast-food experience in the world of lethal injection": University of Central Florida criminal justice Professor Ken Adams
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| Florida Governor Rick Scott |
Florida falls somewhere in the middle between California and Texas when it comes to the speed of executing its death row inmates.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush averaged one every 41/2 months. Charlie Crist averaged one every 10 months. First-term Gov. Rick Scott waited until his seventh month in office before signing his first death warrant.
Earlier this month, Scott signed the authorization for the state to go ahead with the execution of 61-year-old Manuel Valle on Aug. 2 for fatally shooting Coral Gables police officer Luis Pena in 1978.
Valle would be the 70th inmate executed since the death penalty was re-instituted in Florida in 1979. That averages about a little more than two per year. At that rate, it would take Florida 200 years to execute the 399 state inmates on death row.
"Speed is a relative and subjective term. At the slow end, you have California, which has not executed an inmate in five years or more," said University of Central Florida criminal justice Professor Ken Adams. "At the fast end, you have Texas, which offers the equivalent of a fast-food experience in the world of lethal injection. During the early 2000s, Texas executed almost 40 inmates a year."
Mark Elliott, executive director of the group Floridians for Alternatives to the death penalty, said that Gov. Scott signing death warrants all but ensures that innocent people will be executed.
"At least 23 people have been exonerated off of Florida's death row," he said. "The average time they spent on death row was over eight years. Some were there almost 20 years before being exonerated. Frank Lee Smith died (of cancer) on death row just as the DNA evidence came back that cleared him. No one knows for sure how many innocent people have already been executed."
Elliott also said the state would do better to spend its money on things other than maintaining the death penalty.
"Florida spends an estimated $50 million a year on a death penalty program while cutting and disbanding many well-proven, worthwhile, and life-preserving programs. Why is the death penalty exempt from scrutiny? All other state programs must justify their worth and be analyzed for cost vs. benefit," he said.
Other estimates done by the Palm Beach Post and the Death Penalty Information Center are higher than $50 million per year.
The slowdown in execution has not just affected Florida, but is nationwide.
McAdams said the deceleration nationally in executions might simply have to do with the fact that there were fewer murders in the 1990s. Fewer murders, he said, translates into fewer executions.
Most states have very strict death penalty requirements and no real limits on the number of appeals filed, while Texas has a speedy, two-track appeals system. In 2000, Florida tried passing the Death Penalty Reform Act that would have mimicked the Texas system and would have sped up the rate of executions. But the Florida Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional.
"Should Florida quicken the pace of executions?" asked Professor Adams. "There certainly are people who would answer with a resounding 'yes.' My guess is that many of these people are not aware that so far there have been 138 exonerations nationwide of death penalty inmates, mostly based on new forensic analysis. They also probably don't know that Florida leads the pack with 23 exonerations."
Source: "Florida sets its own death row pace", John Torres, FloridaToday.com, July 18, 2011
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Jul 16, 2011
One of them is Manuel Valle, 61, who has spent nearly half his life wearing the bright orange shirts that clearly distinguished the condemned men from all others at Florida State Prison in Starke. ...
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