Florida passes death penalty bill for pedophiles

The Florida legislature in a bipartisan vote, approved a bill backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that allows for the death penalty to be imposed for those convicted of sexually abusing children.

[H/T New York Post]

The vote passed by a wide margin of 34-5 on April 18th and will allow juries to hand down death sentences by votes of at least 8-4, after previously requiring unanimity. 

The bill passed the Florida House of Representatives 95-14 the week prior and applies to those scumbags convicted of abusing a child under the age of 12. Where that number came from is anybody's guess.

“My view is, you have some of these people that will be serial rapists of six, seven-year-old kids,” DeSantis told “Good Morning Orlando” on April 17. “I think the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment when you have situations like that.”

State Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book (D-Davie) and state Sen. Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers), the bill’s co-sponsors, argued that those who sexually harm kids are likely to repeat their crime and deserve the ultimate punishment.

“Once a predator has a child ensnared, they will harm that child over and over and over again,” Book said. “And then move on to another innocent child.”

Book argued that execution guards against the targeting of additional victims.

“Pedophile behavior has been deemed highly repetitive to the point of compulsion,” she said, in concurrence with the extremely high recidivism rate.

State Sen. Rosalind Osgood (D-Broward), one of the five who opposed the bill, said she agreed that sexual attacks on kids are severe crimes, but told fellow lawmakers that she struggled with imposing the death penalty in general due to her religious beliefs.

The bill also runs up against Supreme Court precedent. In 2008, the high court ruled 5-4 in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty could not be levied against child rapists or anyone who committed a crime in which the victim did not die. Just because the rape of a child will stay with them the rest of their lives and interfere with their functioning is no reason to kill the low-life human excrement who did that to them.

However, DeSantis suggested this week that the current Supreme Court, made up of six conservatives and three liberals, might be open to overturning that decision.

The death penalty controversy once again made headlines in Florida last year after a jury spared Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz from execution, instead handing down a life sentence because only one juror voted against his execution and that's all it took. On Monday DeSantis said that Cruz's execution was “really the only appropriate punishment.”

“If you don’t support capital punishment, I respect that,” the governor added, “but the way to deal with that is to try to get the laws changed in the state through the democratic process – not to be on a jury and to nullify capital punishment.”

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Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooter's Sentencing Trial

Shooter holds his head as he listens to his gunshots

The Law & Crime Channel began to record [live] the sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz, the admitted gunman who shot and killed 17 students and staff and wounded 17 others at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. The shooting was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, when Cruz was 19.

Although trials tend to be boring to watch, due to the legal minutia that must be dealt with during testimony, this trial of the 23-year-old piece of human fungus started off with details that would disturb even the hardest among us. Cruz has already pleaded guilty to all charges.

The trial is being held at the Broward County Courthouse, and if all goes well, Nikolas Cruz could receive the death penalty, or life in prison.

Prosecutor Michael Satz called Cruz's attack "cold, calculating, manipulative and deadly," that  involved shocking, gruesome levels of violence.

A former student at the school on the day of the massacre

Satz explained how much of the horrors of Cruz's rampage was captured on the school's surveillance video, and depicted with words how some of the scumbag's victims huddled together in classroom alcoves or in hallways as they lay there wounded, and Cruz returned within minutes and fired more rounds into their bodies, as family members in the gallery wiped away tears and couples held each other.

Cruz used an AR-15 style weapon, wore a tactical vest with many magazines of ammo in the pockets, and overall, fired 139 rounds on his savage and cowardly attack on the unarmed students and staff.

Satz also explained to the jury that they will hear evidence about Cruz, a former student at the school, plan to carry out the attack for months. Police recovered a cellphone video on his phone he made three days before he was dropped off by an Uber driver at the school to carry out the attack.

“Hello, my name is Nick. I am going to be the next school shooter of 2018,” Cruz said on the video, according to Satz. “My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It’s going to be a big event, and when you see me on the news, you will know who I am. You are all going to die.”

Cruz’s legal team will likely ask jurors to spare his life because he had turbulent family upbringing and received mental health counseling. Cruz’s mother died in 2017, and he had been living with a foster family when he carried out his attack, which, of course, gives him a perfect reason and a free pass to kill people.

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Cruz just sat in court, hands on the sides of his head, unable to make eye contact with Satz or anyone else other than his defense counsel. The trial can take anywhere from three to four months.

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