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Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Will Florida use firing squads, hanging, nitrogen gas in executions? New law allows it
As Gov. Ron DeSantis ramps up the number of executions in one year in Florida — with five convicted murders already executed and two more scheduled to die in June — the state has added new options for methods of execution. The Sunshine State has executed people by electrocution since 1924, and lethal injection was added in 2000. Among the 17 bills the governor signed on May 22 was one that opens the door to nitrogen gas. hangings, and firing squads. House Bill 903, which called for sweeping changes in inmate lawsuits, mandatory minimum prison time, how inmates diagnosed with mental illness are treated and involuntary placement and treatment, among other things, also allows any form of execution, provided it was "not deemed unconstitutional," if electrocution or lethal injection is found to be unconstitutional or lethal injection rugs become unavailable. The new law takes effect July 1. In recent years, states have turned to other methods of executions after some pharmaceutical companies have balked at providing lethal injection drugs. Convicted murderer and rapist Jessie Hoffman was executed by nitrogen gas in Louisiana, and South Carolina brought back firing squads for two murderers this year. Florida has also expanded the range of capital offenses. In 2023, the state added child rape as a capital offense, in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and made it easier to impose a death sentence by repealing a unanimous jury requirement. The same day DeSantis signed HB 903 he also signed HB 693, which adds aggravating factors for capital felonies if the victim was gathered with one or more persons for a school activity, religious activity, or public government meeting. The change comes as DeSantis is on track to break the record for most Florida executions in one year. After President Donald Trump signed an executive order his first day in office directing U.S. attorneys to seek the death penalty for any conviction for which it is permitted, DeSantis responded with seven signed death warrants in three months. That's the most death warrants by a Florida governor since 1984 and 2014 when those governors — the late U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and current U.S. Sen. Rick Scott — signed eight each. About 100 death row inmates, including seven added to the list this year, are eligible for execution. However, while many Republican leaders laud the governor's efforts, public support for the death penalty remains at a five-decade low at 53%, with a recent Gallup poll showing more than half of young U.S. adults ages 18 through 43 oppose it. The practice has come under increased criticism in recent years over the morality of the state ending human life and what critics call "horrific" and "barbaric" methods. In February, Brad Keith Sigmon became the first inmate in South Carolina to be executed by firing squad in modern history and the first in the U.S. since 2010. Since 1977, only three other inmates have been killed by firing squad, all in Utah. South Carolina shot another man to death in April: Mikal Mahdi, convicted of the 2004 killing of an off-duty public safety officer. The bill from Rep. Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, allows the state to use any method of execution at all provided it has not been deemed unconstitutional if: Electrocution or lethal injection are found to be unconstitutional, or The acquisition of chemicals necessary for lethal injection becomes impossible or impractical Several states have turned to using nitrogen gas as access to the drugs required for lethal injections has become limited. Some pharmaceutical companies have either stopped production or refused to provide them for executions. While the Florida bill doesn't include the words "firing squad," "hanging," or "nitrogen" anywhere in its text, any of them or other methods would be allowed under state law. A similar Senate bill, SB 1604, specified that alternative methods may not be deemed unconstitutional or "cruel and unusual." That language does not appear in the bill that passed. Other changes in the bill include: Exempting challenges to prison disciplinary reports from requests for court costs and fees for indigent prisoners Adding a one-year statute of limitations on petitions and tort actions filed by a prisoner Adding requirements to certain federal civil actions filed by prisoners Updating minimum sentences and allows courts to impose consecutive sentences for certain crimes Allowing a warden to petition for an order compelling an inmate to submit to emergency surgical intervention or other services when the inmate is competent but refusing necessary treatment and is engaging in self-injurious behavior that threatens others Allowing jail and prison personnel to install and use tracking devices and applications Overhauling the Department of Corrections Mental Health Act and established procedures related to advance health care directives for inmates Allowing the governor and cabinet to directly appoint commissioners to the Florida Commission on Offender Review committee rather than from a list compiled by a parole qualifications committee and removes a requirement that membership of the commission must include representation of minorities Sigmon, sentenced to death for the 2001 beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend's parents, chose the firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair. His attorney cited "prolonged and potentially torturous deaths" from the state's recent execution drug and fears of the electric chair, which would "burn and cook him alive." He was strapped to a specially made metal chair with a hood over his head in the same room as the state's electric chair while three volunteer corrections staffers fired live rounds at him through an opening in a wall 15 feet away, according to several news media witnesses who spoke at a news conference afterward. A white target with a red bullseye was placed over Sigmon's heart, after which his attorney read his last words, the warden ordered the execution and the team fired, the witnesses said. "Brad's death was horrifying and violent," Gerald 'Bo' King, Sigmon's attorney and an execution witness, said in a statement. "It is unfathomable that, in 2025, South Carolina would execute one of its citizens in this bloody spectacle." Under a nitrogen gas execution, the inmate is forced to breathe pure nitrogen, resulting in suffocation by 'nitrogen hypoxia' as the inmate's brain and body are deprived of oxygen, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Execution by nitrogen gas was legal in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Arkansas made it legal in March and the legislatures of Ohio and Nebraska reintroduced similar legislation this year. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall described nitrogen hypoxia as "textbook," "humane and effective." Chief District Judge Shelly Dick said witnesses to the state's four nitrogen executions described inmates' bodies "writhing" under their restraints, "vigorous convulsing and shaking for four minutes," heaving, spitting, and a "conscious struggling for life." Five states — South Carolina, Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho — have legalized firing squads as an execution method. Idaho legalized them in 2023. The last American inmate to be killed by firing squad before Sigmon was in 2010, when Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner for killing a man during a robbery. Before that, Gary Mark Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996 were both shot to death in Utah. Florida has executed people for nearly 200 years. Benjamin Donica, the first known execution in the state, was hanged for murder in 1827. Inmates convicted of capital crimes may be sentenced to death, although they may stay on death row for years as appeals work their way through the legal system. Execution dates are set by the governor, who signs the death warrants. From 1924 until May 1964, the state of Florida has executed 196 people. There were no executions from May 1964 until May 1976. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court struck down the death penalty but it was reinstated in 1976. Florida has carried out 111 executions since then. There are two executions scheduled for June, barring any challenges. Anthony F. Wainwright, who escaped from a North Carolina prison with another man and kidnapped, raped and killed a North Florida woman they abducted from a Winn-Dixie parking lot, is scheduled to be executed on June 10 Thomas Gudinas, convicted of the 1994 rape and murder of a woman near a downtown Orlando bar, has been scheduled for execution on June 24. Before 1923, executions were usually performed by hanging. The Florida Legislature passed a law replacing that method with an electric chair, which was built by prison inmates. The first person electrocuted by the state was Frank Johnson in 1924, for shooting and killing a Jacksonville railroad engineer during a burglary. Florida's current three-legged electric chair, nicknamed 'Old Sparky,' was built of oak by Florida Department of Corrections staff and installed at Florida State Prison in Raiford in 1999. Legislation passed in 2000 allows for lethal injection as an alternative to the electric chair. The choice is left up to the inmate. All executions, injection or electric chair, are carried out at the execution chamber located at Florida State Prison in Raiford. The executioner, a private citizen allowed to remain anonymous by state law, is paid $150 per execution. As of Wednesday, April 2, there are currently 271 inmates on Florida's death row, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. It breaks down to: White males: 162 Black males: 95 Other males: 13 White females: 0 Black females: 1 Other females: 0 Men on death row are housed at Florida State Prison and Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. Women are housed at Lowell Annex in Lowell. Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations, with 30 prisoners found wrongfully incarcerated since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Contributing: Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida executions by nitrogen gas, noose, firing squad become legal
American Press
21-05-2025
- Politics
- American Press
Jim Beam column:Ethics, campaigns on hit list
Members of the Louisiana Legislature have decided to make their political lives much easier by weakening the state's ethics and campaign finance laws.(Photo courtesy of WVUE-Fox 8 in New Orleans). Louisiana legislators have obviously decided they don't want to have to worry much about whether they are performing ethically. They also want fewer rules when it comes to receiving campaign contributions. The best evidence about both of those issues can be found in House Bills 160 and 674, both ethics measures, and in HB 693, a 100-page bill dealing with campaign contributions. HB 674 passed the House unanimously and is awaiting a hearing in the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee. HB 160 is awaiting a final vote in the House. The Public Affairs Research Council said legislators should strengthen, not undermine the state's ethics and disclosure laws. 'That's the wrong message to send in a state riddled with Louisiana's long and sordid political history, particularly when polls show public trust in government is at historic lows,' the non-profit research agency said. The Advocate in an editorial said, 'There's more packed into this bill — from changes to when officials can accept privately paid travel to what amount they can accept as gifts — so you would expect it to have sparked spirited debate on the House floor. Yet not a single Republican or Democrat raised any questions.' The newspaper said government watchdog groups worry that if the bill passes, future investigations could be shut down before they even get off the ground. Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, author of HB 674 and chairman of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee, said legislators from both parties are frustrated with the ethics board, which has been accused of harassing public officials and lacking transparency. Rep. Kellee Dickerson, R-Denham Springs, is sponsor of HB 160 that would give the subject of an ethics complaint the ability to know the identity of the person leveling the accusations, which is currently confidential. The Advocate reported that Dickerson was the subject of an ethics board investigation that found she improperly hired a teacher for a contract job while she was a Livingston Parish School Board member. Her bill is awaiting final action in the House. Members of the Board of Ethics in a May 12 letter to legislators said, 'House Bill 160 proposes to remove the confidential nature of complaints, which will have a drastic chilling effect on the filing of formal complaints. The ethics administrator said, 'The opportunity to face your accuser comes once the board files public charges.' PAR said of the HB 674 ethics changes, 'The measure clearly aims to make it harder for the ethics board and its administrative staff to bring charges against officials. Are lawmakers trying to make it nearly impossible, though?' The research agency said HB 693, the 100-page campaign finance bill, is 'a similar vast redesign of the laws governing the spending and disclosure of the money candidates, political parties and others raise for politicking.' The agency said that makes it harder to investigate possible campaign finance violations. The bill is awaiting a final vote in the House. The Advocate in an ethics editorial said the campaign finance bill would make numerous changes to campaign finance laws, including eliminating the requirement that money spent to promote or defeat tax propositions or other elections that don't involve candidates be disclosed. 'The state seems to go through cycles where rampant corruption gives way to good government reforms prompted by public outcry,' the newspaper said. 'Then, politicians, weary of the constraints placed upon them, push to weaken ethics rules, hoping the public will have forgotten why they were needed in the first place.' The Illuminator reported one of the unusual aspects of this sudden rush to change the state's ethics laws. It is the fact that Stephen Gele´, an attorney representing Gov. Jeff Landry in his negotiations with the ethics board over his 2023 case, helped to draft the legislation. Although the proposed changes will only affect future ethics cases and not Landry's, it's still an unusual situation to have Landry's attorney involved. If Landry's case ever surfaces, don't look for any possible penalties. The Legislature last year made changes to the ethics board that give the governor more control over appointing its members. Landry took office on Jan. 8, 2024, and legislators have given him an unbelievable number of new powers. And the odds are the power grab won't stop until he leaves office. Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or Reply Forward Add reaction
