Florida’s not just a national leader in exporting oranges and producing bizarre headlines. This year they emerged as the state leader in executions, having put to death eight death row inmates this year already, with an additional inmate scheduled for death by month’s end.
Assuming the scheduled execution proceeds, that will make for nine executions this year, a national capital punishment record since the practice was legally reinstated in 1976.
In response to the record-setting rate of executions, an alliance of 100 clergy are pleading with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to stop putting prisoners to death, appealing to DeSantis’ deeply-held Catholicism by arguing that the practice is unethical and unbiblical.
Will the message resonate?
Justice or Vengeance?
“The governor alone decides who lives and who dies with no checks or balances,” stated Demetrius Minor, a Pentecostal minister and anti-death penalty activist. “My friends, that is not justice, that’s what we call vengeance, and it is very dangerous.”
Minor was walking the streets of Tallahassee to hand-deliver a letter signed by 100 of Florida’s most prominent Christian leaders. The letter, signed by Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and more, urged DeSantis to immediately cease the flurry of executions in Florida.
The letter lays bare their numerous ethical and legal complaints with capital punishment – including that it is racist and error-prone.
“Florida's death penalty system is plagued by racial disparities, a long and painful process that retraumatizes families, and a troubling history of wrongful convictions,” the letter reads. “Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations—proof that the risk of executing an innocent person is not hypothetical but real.”
The letter pleads with the governor to “work toward a justice system that reflects the moral leadership our communities expect and deserve,” and urges him to “[choose] life over death, healing over harm.”
Will It Work?
Will the letter have an impact? Don’t count on it, experts say.
DeSantis has long defended capital punishment, and even worked with the state legislature to broadly expand the practice in Florida. Earlier this year, the state passed five different death penalty bills, including one that legalized execution methods previously deemed barbaric, including firing squads, hangings, and the use of nitrogen gas.
Another bill imposes mandatory death penalty sentences for certain offenses.
Notably, the Supreme Court ruled decades ago mandatory death sentences for specific crimes are unconstitutional.
But DeSantis is pushing ahead anyway, saying it’s a necessary punishment for unspeakable crimes. “When you see these things across your desk, these are brutal, brutal crimes,” he stated. “This stuff is just overwhelmingly sadistic. It shocks your conscience.”
Since January, he’s signed more death warrants than any governor in any given calendar year in modern history.
The faith leaders understand that convincing Florida to stop state executions is a longshot. But they say their faith compels them to try to convince him regardless. “We can’t stay silent,” said Minor. If we are silent, we complicit.”
What is your response?
3 comments
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Najah P Tamargo
Najah Tamargo-USA
No MAN or WOMAN has the right to put someone to death. The only one that has the right to determine life and death is the Creator Almighty.
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Bishop William Dusenberry, DD
As long as the Christian majority, knows, that their Christian God still supports the death penalty, so will the Catholic majority on the Supreme Court refuse to rule, that the death penalty is “cruel and unusual.” Christianity only exists, because the Christian God permitted his only son, to be tortured to death on a cross — and until the Christian God, tells the Pope (Gods representative on Earth) that “he’s now changed his mind, about murdering murderers, the death penalty will endure, especially in the evangelistic states such as Florida.
Let’s talk about the dual reasons for imprisonment. One: to make restitution for crimes committed, or two: to remove someone from society. The prison system does not do a good job of rehabilitation; it’s more like a holding pen. If the purpose is punishment, jails and prisons work well. If they’re meant to remove people from society, prisons work well, too, but to remove someone from the human race requires execution. Question: do we want to keep people alive but away from society, or do we remove them from humanity? Once society figures out which option it wants, the answer is clear. It all depends on the choice society picks.