- Florida has enacted a law allowing for the death penalty for child rapists under 12, despite legal challenges due to 8th Amendment concerns.
- Advocates argue for the protection of children and alarming cases of child abuse in the area, while critics express concerns about the potential impact on family dynamics and the need for a Supreme Court reversal for the law to apply in specific cases.
Numerous recently enacted statutes have taken effect in the state of Florida as of Sunday. Among them, the most contentious pertains to alterations in Florida’s application of the death penalty, particularly in cases of child rapists who may now face capital punishment for their transgressions.
This legislative adjustment specifically addresses child victims under the age of 12. Notably, higher courts have already ruled that imposing death sentences in such cases constitutes a violation of the 8th Amendment. Nevertheless, proponents argue that this law remains a safeguard for the welfare of children.
In Florida, the judicial system has been granted the authority to condemn child rapists to death row, a measure that garnered bipartisan support as it advanced through Tallahassee.
On Monday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed three “anti-crime” bills into law, one of which renders child rapists eligible for the death penalty, with the minimum sentence being life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
“We think that in the worst of the worst cases, the only appropriate punishment is the ultimate punishment, and so this bill sets up a procedure to be able to challenge that precedent,” the Republican governor said at a news conference in Titusville, Florida.
“In Florida, we stand for the protection of children,” DeSantis said. “Unfortunately, in our society, you have very heinous sex crimes that are committed against children under the age of 12 years old.”
“The perpetrators of these crimes are often serial offenders,” the governor added. “We really believe that part of a just society is to have appropriate punishment. And so, if you commit a crime that is really, really heinous, you should have the ultimate punishment.”
Pictured: Governor Ron DeSantis, Source-Facebook
Maria DeLiberato holds the position of executive director at Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
‘The legislature, to their credit, acknowledged that when they passed it right, they said, ‘we know this isn’t the law, we just hope the law will get change,’ said DeLiberato.
DeLiberato then pointed to statistics according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway: about 90 percent of child sex abuse victims know their abuser and about 30 percent of children are abused by family members. “So now, you’ve got this whole dynamic where a child is going to bear the weight of a possible death sentence to a neighbor, an uncle, grandfather, something that someone that they know that everybody in their family is not going to feel the exact same way about,” said DeLiberato.
Pictured: Maria DeLiberato, Source-‘X’
