Bishops Oppose Bills Expanding Application of the Death Penalty

HB 693, sponsored by Representative Mike Redondo (R-Miami), would add a new aggravating factor for capital felonies when the victim was gathered with one or more people for a school activity, religious activity, or public government meeting.
On Thursday, March 13, Joe Harmon, FCCB's policy coordinator, testified in opposition to the bill before the House Judiciary Committee. "We agree that these terrible and tragic crimes are gravely evil," said Harmon. "We agree also that the state has a duty to punish offenders and protect society. However, we oppose the bill because it expands the death penalty." 
Harmon mentioned there is reason to doubt the deterrent effect of the death penalty, and the additional cost incurred by the state. “We urge that death is not a good tool of justice in our society,” Harmon said. “Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is already a severe punishment, which also protects the public.” 
The FCCB also sent a letter outlining concerns to the bill sponsor. The bill was approved unanimously by the Judiciary Committee, and has been placed on the House Calendar. The Senate version, SB 984, sponsored by Senator Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota) is on the Criminal Justice Committee calendar for March 18 at 3:30 p.m. 
The legislature has filed several additional bills expanding the pool of persons eligible for execution if found guilty. The FCCB sent a letter to Senator Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill), sponsor of SB 776 that would expand capital punishment for offenses targeting national or state leaders, and a letter to Senator Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers), sponsor of SB 1804 that would make sex trafficking of children under 12 or persons who are mentally incapacitated a capital felony, which could result in a death sentence.
The law already forbids the crimes targeted by these proposed bills. This is a step in the wrong direction for Florida. We have had too many problems with our death penalty, from finding the wrong person guilty, to botched executions, to the execution of persons with severe mental illness. 
Florida is an outlier in the US when it comes to the death penalty: with the lowest threshold for a jury recommendation of the death sentence (8-4), second in the size of its death row and the number of its executions, first in the number of new death sentences, and most serious of all, first in the number of people exonerated due to evidence of wrongful conviction.
The alternative of life in prison without the possibility of parole protects society from further harm and is a severe punishment.