Nobody wants to die any sooner than they have to! Most death-row inmates spend years or decades pursuing any and all legal avenues and appeals, even engaging the public at large when possible to put off the moment of court-ordered death.
You've probably seen it in countless movies: the sharp-shooter severing the hangman's noose. The ticking clock above the phone to the governor's desk that rings at the last second... or doesn't. Or, much more soberly, in reality hard-working lawyers and families and scientists and inmates themselves use their time and resources to demonstrate enough uncertainty, and often even innocence itself to stop the countdown.
Extra time, for whatever reason is a good thing. No story here, move along!
So why does it feel so fundamentally wrong? Are there any legal issues to this delay? I don't know the answers... but I have some serious questions below.
My questions fall roughly into three categories. The first two are the Constitutional rights of the inmate, and the rights of the victims and their families. Those are strangely intertwined, as the courts often take arduous and exhaustive paths to reach a final date of execution for a condemned inmate. Many families painfully await the date of execution, yearning for some respite and catharsis. How could Rick Scott cavalierly push off such a long-awaited reckoning merely for a political convenience?
The inmate's rights may have some bearing as well. It could easily be considered torture to capriciously change a scheduled execution for no legally relevant reason. As much so for the family of the condemned, who certainly have deep psychic wounds to deal with as well.
Maybe more esoterically, can he legally and ethically do this?
There's a side concern of the sheer expense of preparing for an execution: housing, legal costs, communications, etc. How much does it cost per day to delay?
Can a Governor interfere with a court-mandated timeline without a legal framework?
Does the sentence need to be commuted?
If the date is arbitrary, why hold inmate's appeals to any deadlines? Do the Gov's friends' schedules outweigh the Judiciary?
Did Scott just demonstrate the irrelevance of execution as a legal remedy? He obviously felt it could be done at leisure, rather at the appointed time. That can only mean that the incarceration of the convict is suitable, and the execution is secondary to the executive function of his office.
And of special note, he opened up a veritable Achille's Heel in the argument for execution. He violated the bedrock conservative principle of allowing no space for criticism. The "conservative" playbook mandates fighting every appeal on every technicality, ignore the massive inequalities and mistakes, and get them killed at the first possible second. He gave quarter to a death-row inmate, if even for a little while, and catastrophically broke ranks with hard-liners everywhere. There's been huge issues with how and who we execute in America. Now we have a serious "Why?" And he did it completely out of hubris.