Democrat Aramis Ayala’s victory this past November was one of the few highlights this last election. Becoming the first black person in Florida’s history to be elected as a prosecutor, Ayala made waves a couple of weeks ago when she announced that, upon reviewing her county, she wasn’t going to pursue the death penalty in murder cases. Her reasoning was pretty sound and therefore anathema to Republican sensibilities everywhere. This included a Florida county court official and economically anxious Trump supporter calling for her to be “tarred and feathered if not hung from a tree.” Not to be outdone, Florida’s own Republican embarrassment of a governor Rick Scott has gotten in on the act.
Through executive order, the Republican governor is reassigning 21 first-degree murder cases from State Attorney Aramis Ayala to a prosecutor who handles a different judicial circuit.
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Scott says he is reassigning the murder cases in the "interest of justice."
"State Attorney Ayala's complete refusal to consider capital punishment for the entirety of her term sends an unacceptable message that she is not interested in considering every available option in the fight for justice," Scott says in a statement.
It sounds more like she just isn’t considering the one option you seem to like. In unrelated news, since Scott became governor of Florida, there have been at least three men acquitted after serving time on death row—in his state. Governor Rick Scott has also signed more death warrants than any previous Florida governor. There have been 23 people executed with his signature. Since the advent of using DNA evidence to appeal cases, there have been 156 exonerations. Florida tops the list with 26 people being exonerated in recent years from DNA, followed by Texas with 13. That’s Texas that has killed literally hundreds more people on death row than any other state.
Of the six exonerations in 2015, one was from Florida. Derral Wayne Hodgkins was freed from death row two years after he got there. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict him of the 2006 beating, strangulation and stabbing death of an ex-girlfriend. A jury had convicted the Pasco man and, on a vote of 7-5, recommended his death.
One Florida man died before his exoneration came to light. After 15 years on death row, Frank Lee Smith died of cancer in 2000. A few months later DNA results cleared him of a 1985 murder conviction.
To put a finer point on this. Jeb! Bush signed off on the executions of 21 people during his two terms as governor. Rick Scott has signed off on 23 during one term.