A new poll of vot­ers in Orange and Osceola coun­ties in Florida — tak­en in the wake of Governor Rick Scott’s removal of their local­ly elect­ed State Attorney Aramis Ayala (pic­tured) from 22 homi­cide cas­es after she announced that her office would not pur­sue the death penal­ty — shows that the coun­ties’ vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly pre­fer the use of life impris­on­ment over the death penal­ty as pun­ish­ment for mur­der. The poll by Public Policy Polling, released on April 10, found that 62% of Orange and Osceola coun­ty respon­dents pre­ferred some form of life in prison for those con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der, while just 31% pre­ferred the death penal­ty. Ayala’s March 17 deci­sion not to seek the death penal­ty in any mur­der cas­es drew praise from the Florida Black Caucus and local civ­il rights groups, but pro­voked an imme­di­ate back­lash from death penal­ty pro­po­nents. Republican Governor Rick Scott removed Ayala — a Democrat and the state’s only local­ly elect­ed African-American pros­e­cu­tor—from 22 mur­der cas­es and replaced her with State Attorney Brad King, a white Republican pros­e­cu­tor from a neigh­bor­ing judi­cial dis­trict. The Public Policy Polling sur­vey found a pref­er­ence for life sen­tences across all racial, gen­der, and age groups and polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions. 73% of black vot­ers pre­ferred some form of life sen­tence as the pun­ish­ment for mur­der, as com­pared to 19% who pre­ferred the death penal­ty. Whites and Latinos also pre­ferred life sen­tences over the death penal­ty, both by mar­gins of 29 per­cent­age points. The pref­er­ence for life sen­tences tran­scend­ed par­ty affil­i­a­tion, although there were clear par­ti­san dif­fer­ences. 76% of Democrats pre­ferred life sen­tences, while 21% favored the death penal­ty; Independents pre­ferred life sen­tences by a mar­gin of 22 per­cent­age points (55%-33%); and Republicans pre­ferred life sen­tences by 5 per­cent­age points (49%-44%). A major­i­ty of vot­ers also sup­port­ed a State Attorney tak­ing a ​“data-dri­ven” approach to reduc­ing bias in sen­tenc­ing and con­sid­er­ing costs to tax­pay­ers and the effect on vic­tims’ fam­i­lies when decid­ing whether to seek a death sen­tence. Kenneth B. Nunn, a pro­fes­sor of law at University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, said, ​“These results clear­ly show that Orange and Osceola vot­ers strong­ly pre­fer life sen­tences over the death penal­ty. State Attorney Aramis Ayala’s posi­tion on the death penal­ty is very much in line with the posi­tion of her con­stituents.” Governor Scott lost Orange County by 12 per­cent­age points and Osceola County by 9 per­cent­age points in the 2014 guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion.

(S. Powers, ​“PPP poll finds Orange, Osceola coun­ties pre­fer life pun­ish­ment to death sen­tence,” Florida Politics, April 10, 2017; ​“Orange and Osceola Counties Survey Results,” Public Policy Polling, April 5 – 7, 2017.) See Public Opinion.

Citation Guide