DeSantis-backed stricter death penalty bill could prompt Supreme Court review

A bill introduced by Florida lawmakers would defy Supreme Court precedent by allowing capital punishment for felons who commit sexual battery on young children if signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).

Senate Bill 1342 would directly challenge a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, Kennedy v. Louisiana, which determined the death penalty could not be applied to child rape and would violate Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. If a lawsuit were filed against the bill, it could tee up the matter for eventual review among the nine justices.

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The Florida Senate Rules Committee is slated to vote on the bill Tuesday, marking the last step before it heads to a floor vote. It’s also a bipartisan effort, having been introduced by Republican state Sen. Jonathan Martin with Democratic state Sen. Lauren Book.

Martin previously said an eventual court challenge to the measure, were it to become law, could allow the high court’s 6-3 Republican-appointed majority to revise the 2008 precedent.

“Ultimately, if you look at the court’s makeup from 2008, it has changed significantly,” Martin said. “I think the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court believes that states should have more of a say in decisions like criminal justice that were originally left to the states under the U.S. Constitution.”

DeSantis has signaled support for SB 1342 and a separate bill, SB 450, which would reduce the number of jurors required to implement the death penalty.

“These people don’t care. They are unrepentant,” DeSantis said of sexual predators during a Jan. 28 appearance in Miami. “I believe the only appropriate punishment that would be commensurate to that would be capital.”

The proposed legislation would only allow capital punishment for child sexual battery if jurors unanimously find there are two aggravating factors to the crime instead of only one, unlike the state’s death penalty sentencing guidelines for murder cases. Aggravating factors include whether the perpetrator used a firearm, if they were a felon on probation, or whether the victim was especially vulnerable due to a disability.

SB 1342 ultimately contends that Kennedy and a separate but similar ruling by the Florida Supreme Court known as Buford v. State were wrongly decided.

Although the Supreme Court only explicitly ruled out the death penalty for nonmurder cases in 2008, no felon has been executed for crimes other than murder in the nation since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Several states also have not pursued the death penalty for nonmurder charges due to a separate 1977 Supreme Court decision that held the death penalty is unconstitutional for the rape of an adult. Florida has had a law that designates sexual battery of a child under 12 as a capital felony, though the statute has been considered moot due to the separate high court rulings.

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State Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat, said he thinks the legislation would lead to a likely win for DeSantis ahead of a potential 2024 presidential election bid for the governor, as numerous political analysts speculate he is mounting a bid to compete against former President Donald Trump in the GOP primary.

“You are a far more depraved individual, in my experience, to touch a kid than you are to shoot somebody,” Pizzo said.