DPI Podcast 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context: Fair and Just Prosecution’s Aramis Ayala on the Death Penalty, Prosecutorial Discretion, and Conviction Integrity

In the January 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Aramis Ayala, Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution. Ms. Ayala made his­to­ry in 2016 as Florida’s first Black state attor­ney and lat­er became the first Black woman in Florida to be nom­i­nat­ed for state attor­ney gen­er­al by a major par­ty. In the pod­cast, she dis­cuss­es her deci­sion to not seek the death penal­ty, the reac­tion to her deci­sion, and the evolv­ing role of pros­e­cu­tors in the cap­i­tal punishment system.

In 2017, Ms. Ayala, then an elect­ed pros­e­cu­tor in Florida, announced she would not seek the death penal­ty in any cas­es, cit­ing data-dri­ven con­cerns about racial dis­par­i­ties, finan­cial costs, hier­ar­chy of vic­tims, and trau­ma among exe­cu­tion per­son­nel. She explains that she start­ed down a ​“rab­bit hole” of research on the death penal­ty as a defense attor­ney, ​“and it was much dif­fer­ent than what [she] ha[d] seen on the pros­e­cu­tion side as an assis­tant state attor­ney.” Ms. Ayala not­ed that these facts were ​“weigh­ing heavy” on her. She ulti­mate­ly decid­ed that her ​“oath to seek jus­tice could not pre­vail if [she] were to seek death.” Despite sup­port from her con­stituents, then-Governor Rick Scott reas­signed dozens of cap­i­tal cas­es from her office, and the Florida leg­is­la­ture stripped $1.4 mil­lion from her bud­get. Ms. Ayala described this as an attack on her exer­cise of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion by offi­cials with no death penal­ty expe­ri­ence, not­ing that ​“pub­lic safe­ty was nev­er com­pro­mised” despite these obstacles.

Ms. Ayala draws par­al­lels between her expe­ri­ence and cur­rent fed­er­al gov­ern­ment threats to over­ride local pros­e­cu­tors’ deci­sions and seek death sen­tences even in states that have abol­ished the death penal­ty. She describes this trend as a threat to democ­ra­cy, explain­ing that elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors rep­re­sent their com­mu­ni­ties’ val­ues and should have the inde­pen­dence to make charg­ing decisions accordingly.

As Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution, Ms. Ayala leads a net­work of elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors com­mit­ted to gov­ern­ment account­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and jus­tice. She empha­sizes that the organization’s core mis­sion is to pro­tect pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al inde­pen­dence and dis­cre­tion. In dis­cussing the role of pros­e­cu­tors, she expressed deep sup­port for con­vic­tion integri­ty units that are now in many pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tor offices. Ms. Ayala not­ed, ​“Florida leads the nation in death row exon­er­a­tions,” and ques­tioned how the gov­ern­ment can ​“ignore that fact and just keep hand­ing down death sen­tences like they’re can­dy on Halloween.” She added, ​“If we’re going to tru­ly call our­selves pro­fes­sion­al and those who are pro­tect­ing the pub­lic and sanc­ti­ty of our law, we have to acknowl­edge that val­ue of conviction integrity.”