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What merits the death penalty in Florida?

The conviction of kidnapping, rape, and murder of eleven-year-old boy Junny Rios-Martinez, Jr. earned Mark Dean Schwab the death penalty. He is the next person sentenced to die. Governor Charlie Crist has signed his death warrant, and the date has been set for Thursday, November 15, 2007.

Florida differs slightly from other states. First-Degree-Murder, Felony Murder (roughly, murder committed during the course of a felony), Capital Sexual Battery, and Capital Drug Trafficking are all charges that can be punishable by death upon conviction of the crime, unless committed by someone under 18 at the time the crime occurs.

Before 1923, executions were usually done by hanging, and carried out by individual counties. In 1924, Florida began using the electric chair after legislating electrocution to be the statewide means of execution. Florida State Prison is located in Starke, Florida, and houses the death chamber. The state executed 155 men for murder, 41 for rape, and 1 for kidnapping before 1965.

Between that time and 1978, the electric chair rested dormant. The 1972 US Supreme Court ruling of Furman v. Georgia, where the court cited capital punishment as unconstitutional in all states, was overturned in 1976, and Florida resumed electrocutions in 1979.

In 2000, lethal injection was introduced as an alternative means of execution in Florida. It's a three-part process where the sedative (sodium pentothal) is administered intravenously to render the prisoner unconscious, then the paralyzing agent (pan curium bromide) to stop the breathing muscles, and finally, potassium chloride to stop the heart. Some could argue that, in most cases, it's far more humane than the crime committed to earn this punishment.

However, in 2006, former governor Jeb Bush suspended the signing of any new death warrants after controversy surrounding the "botched" lethal injection of Angel Diaz, who was convicted of shooting the manager of a strip club during a robbery. There was a problem with the injections; the procedure took around 37 minutes instead of the approximate 10-18 minutes of past executions. Diaz had a family, also, and they and his attorney were upset, fearing he suffered a cruel and unusual punishment he should have been protected from by law. Bush assigned a commission to look into the lethal injection procedure.

The debate on the morality

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