Only five states have done so this year, according to new numbers from the Death Penalty Information Center. Florida is one of them. Our colleagues in killing are Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
Florida, though, was largely responsible for a national rise in numbers. After taking a pause on executions during a Supreme Court review, we shot up from zero to six executions this year, putting Florida in line with countries like Kuwait and Myanmar. (Texas executed eight prisoners this year.)
There are many reasons why most parts of the civilized world have stopped ordering executions. Here are four:
1. We get it wrong. More than 190 people sentenced to die in America have later had their sentences overturned. Among reasons: Witnesses who recanted or were otherwise revealed to be lying; fabricated evidence; DNA testing and other people confessing to the crimes. And no state has wrongfully sent more people to death row than Florida, where at least 30 capital convictions have been overturned. Those are just the mistakes that were caught.
2. It’s dished out unequally. The mentally ill are more likely to be sentenced to death. So are men. And Black defendants. And the poor. As has often been said of capital punishment: “Those without the capital get the punishment.”
3. It’s more costly. That’s one of the primary reasons groups such as Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty oppose it, since capital cases can cost 10 times as much because of lengthier trials, jury selection and appeals processes that can last decades. The knee-jerk reaction for some is to say: “Well, let’s just execute them faster.” But for that, go back to point No. 1 and consider all the people who weren’t exonerated until decades after they were sentenced to die. Which of them should we have killed anyway for expediency’s sake?
4. It doesn’t deter crime. Murder rates in states with the death penalty are actually higher than those without. And the United States’ homicide rate is three to 10 times higher than in many countries that abolished capital punishment, including Spain, France, Canada and the United Kingdom. Most experts, including those at the National Institute of Justice, have concluded there is actually no correlation. Why? Because people commit murder because they’re enraged. Or evil. Or indifferent to human life. Not because they first consider the statutory penalties.
The mission statement of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty sums up many of the above-referenced facts this way: “Questioning a system marked by inefficiency, inequity and inaccuracy.”
So what are the arguments in favor of the death penalty vs. life without parole? Mainly that it meets some people’s standard of eye-for-an-eye justice. But to accept that, you have to accept everything else mentioned above, including that fatal punishment is sometimes wrongly applied.
And Florida is not only the worst on that front for its sheer number of wrongful convictions, but because lawmakers just voted to make those inaccuracies more likely.
This past session, lawmakers voted to allow judges to order death sentences even when juries don’t unanimously agree the defendant deserves it. The law now allows judges to do so even when only eight out of 12 jurors agree, giving Florida the lowest threshold in America.
To put that split-decision policy on steroids, lawmakers also passed a new law allowing executions for people convicted of sexually assaulting a child, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has previously declared it unconstitutional. Places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are among the few that endorse government-ordered killing for nonlethal crimes.
There’s no denying that most people are correctly convicted and that many are monsters. But the problems with mistakes and inequities have been proven, including here in Central Florida in the hard-to-believe case of Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin, who was swiftly convicted of a brutal double murder in Seminole County back in 2004.
Aguirre-Jarquin was an easy target. An undocumented Honduran immigrant with no resources. And the cops were sure he did it. The jury sentenced him to death. And the judge agreed.
Later, however, someone else repeatedly confessed to the crime and DNA evidence exonerated Aguirre-Jarquin — after an appeals process that was, once again, lengthy and costly.
Both the judge and jury foreperson — two men who confidently sent Aguirre-Jarquin to death row back in 2006 — would later say the process changed their worldview.
The foreperson even penned a guest column for the Orlando Sentinel a few years ago that detailed his gut-wrenching epiphany.
“I once held a man’s life in my hands,” wrote Mike Powell. “I know how it feels to be sure someone did the crime. I know how it feels to hear about a terrible crime and believe whoever did it deserved a death sentence. And now, for the rest of my life, I will also know just how wrong a person, a group of people, and an entire criminal justice system can be.”
That’s the conclusion most nations and states have come to accept — with the exception of places like China, Iran, Texas and Florida.
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