Florida Prosecutors Seek First Death Sentence Under New Child Sex Abuse Law

On December 14, 2023, Lake County, Florida pros­e­cu­tors announced they are seek­ing the death penal­ty for a man accused of com­mit­ting the sex­u­al bat­tery of a minor under the age of twelve. A state­ment from the office of State Attorney William Gladson said the deci­sion reflects the ​“sever­i­ty of the crime and its impact on the com­mu­ni­ty.” Earlier this year, Governor Ron DeSantis signed leg­is­la­tion that expands death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty to those con­vict­ed of sex crimes against chil­dren. This is the first case in which Florida pros­e­cu­tors have sought a death sen­tence under the new law. 

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that a death sen­tence for the rape of an adult woman that does not result in her death is an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. In 2008, the Supreme Court sim­i­lar­ly ruled in Kennedy v. Louisiana that a law mak­ing the death penal­ty an option for the crime of rap­ing a child was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. But accord­ing to lan­guage in the new bill, law­mak­ers opined that the Court’s rul­ing in Kennedy was ​“wrong­ly decid­ed and that such cas­es are an egre­gious infringe­ment of the states’ pow­er to pun­ish the most heinous of crimes.” The bill’s spon­sor and a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor Senator Jonathan Martin told his col­leagues that ​“the most seri­ous crime like sex­u­al bat­tery on a child needs the most seri­ous pun­ish­ment and the most seri­ous penal­ty and the most seri­ous deter­rent.” The bill passed the Florida leg­is­la­ture with bipar­ti­san sup­port and was passed in the same leg­isla­tive ses­sion as a bill to low­er the thresh­old for death penal­ty rec­om­men­da­tions by Florida juries from unan­i­mous to a vote of 8 – 4. 

Gov. DeSantis, who sup­port­ed and signed both pieces of leg­is­la­tion, believes the Supreme Court will uphold Florida’s new child sex­u­al bat­tery law. ​“This bill sets up a pro­ce­dure to be able to chal­lenge that prece­dent and to be able to say that in Florida we think that the worst of the worst crimes deserve the worst of the worst pun­ish­ment,” said Gov. DeSantis. In a state­ment post­ed to social media, Gov. DeSantis praised the states’ attorney’s deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty in this case. ​“The State’s Attorney has my full support.”