As Florida continues to add to a modern-era record for executions in a year, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said he is bringing justice to victims' families.
Florida has executed 15 inmates this year, with two more scheduled in November. The previous modern-era record for a year was eight in 1984 and 2014. Before this year, the most executions carried out since DeSantis took office was six in 2023.
DeSantis said he thinks the death penalty could be a "strong deterrent" if sentences were more quickly carried out. He suggested that the increase in death warrants could have started years earlier but that he needed time to get settled into office after first being elected in 2018 and that priorities shifted as the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020.
The state did not execute any inmates in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
"I think we're in a good spot now, and I want to make sure that people (Death Row inmates) that have exhausted all these appeals over many years, sometimes decades, like when all that's done …, and there's victims' families that are wanting to see justice, that I'm doing my part to deliver that," DeSantis said during an appearance in Jacksonville.
House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, acknowledged she might sound "cynical," but she indicated the increase in DeSantis signing death warrants could be tied to his political ambitions.
"What we've seen from this governor, and past behavior is oftentimes a predictor of where future behavior might go, this is a governor who's been so focused on his own ambitions, his personal ambitions, he wants to impress Republican primary voters," Driskell said Monday during a conference call with reporters.
DeSantis said he views the death penalty as "an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders."
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"We have lengthy reviews and appeals that I think should be shorter," DeSantis said. "I still have a responsibility to look at these cases and to be sure that the person's guilty. And if I honestly thought somebody wasn't, I would not pull the trigger on it."
But Driskell said she has concerns about speeding up the death penalty process.
"We've seen problems in the death penalty process," Driskell said. "Florida has had more exonerations for wrongful convictions when it comes to the death penalty than any other state."
Florida last week executed Norman Grim, 65, for the 1998 sexual assault and murder of Cynthia Chapman, an attorney who was his neighbor in Santa Rosa County. Grim was the 15th inmate executed this year.
DeSantis also has signed death warrants to execute Bryan Frederick Jennings on Nov. 13 and Richard Barry Randolph on Nov. 20. Jennings was convicted in the 1979 kidnapping, rape and murder of a 6-year-old girl in Brevard County, while Randolph was convicted in the 1988 rape and murder of a Putnam County convenience-store manager.
The modern era for capital punishment in Florida represents the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling halted it.
As of Monday, Florida had 256 inmates on death row, according to the state Department of Corrections website. Florida has had 30 people convicted and sentenced to death only to later be exonerated since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Illinois is next highest with 22, followed by Texas at 18.
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