Florida Prosecutor Announces She Will No Longer Seek Death Sentences, Governor Moves to Exclude Her From Police-Killing Case

Saying that pur­su­ing the death penal­ty ​“is not in the best inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty or in the best inter­ests of jus­tice,” Orange-Osceola County, Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala (pic­tured) announced on March 16 that her office would not seek the death penal­ty while she is State Attorney. 

Ayala — the first black elect­ed pros­e­cu­tor in Florida — said that as State Attorney, it was her oblig­a­tion to make pol­i­cy deci­sions based on the evi­dence and that, after review­ing the evi­dence, she had con­clud­ed that the death penal­ty had failed as a deter­rent, drained pub­lic resources, and made promis­es to fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­ders vic­tims that the sys­tem could not keep. She said, ​“I am pro­hib­it­ed from mak­ing the sever­i­ty of sen­tences the index of my effec­tive­ness. Punishment is most effec­tive when it hap­pens con­sis­tent­ly and swift­ly. Neither describe the death penal­ty in this state.” 

As of January 2013, Orange County had more pris­on­ers on its death row than 99.2% of U.S. coun­ties and was among the 2% of coun­ties respon­si­ble for more than half of all exe­cu­tions in the U.S. since 1976. However, the coun­ty has been mov­ing away from the death penal­ty and had imposed only one new death sen­tence since 2012. 

Ayala’s deci­sion pro­duced both praise and imme­di­ate back­lash. Civil rights groups and faith lead­ers praised the announce­ment. Adora Obi Nweze, pres­i­dent of the Florida State Conference NAACP, called the move ​“a step toward restor­ing a mea­sure of trust and integri­ty in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” ​“A pow­er­ful sym­bol of racial injus­tice has now been dis­card­ed in Orange County,” he said. Florida attor­ney gen­er­al, Pam Bondi, blast­ed the deci­sion as a ​“bla­tant neglect of duty.” 

Governor Rick Scott imme­di­ate­ly asked Ayala to recuse her office from the high-pro­file pros­e­cu­tion of Markeith Loyd, who is accused of killing his ex-girl­friend and an Orlando police offi­cer, and when she refused to step down, he issued an exec­u­tive order appoint­ing Lake County State Attorney Brad King, a for­mer Vice President of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, to pros­e­cute Loyd. That deci­sion also pro­voked imme­di­ate crit­i­cism. Howard Simon, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said ​“this a dan­ger­ous prece­dent” and asked ​“Whenever the gov­er­nor doesn’t like the exer­cise of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al deci­sion by an elect­ed pros­e­cu­tor, he’s going to step in and appoint somebody else?”