Florida’s justice system fails on many fronts – St. Petersburg Times
July 7th, 2008
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In April, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the method of lethal injection utilized by Florida, among other states, does not violate the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
That should not be the end of the conversation.
Reasonable men and women of all political affiliations, faiths, and professional backgrounds have disagreed for decades about the morality of executing those who commit heinous crimes. As a former prosecutor, defense attorney, trial judge and chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, I have been involved in 1,200 capital cases and can personally attest to the complexity and uncertainty of that debate. Remarkably, the same individuals who agree on little else are beginning to find one piece of common ground: the belief that Florida’s system of capital punishment is broken.