St. Petersburg Times

March 30, 2004

Editorial

Shamefully, Florida is one of the few places in the entire world where peo­ple can be put to death for crimes they com­mit­ted as juve­niles. The Legislature, amid one of its spells of death-penal­ty hys­te­ria four years ago, spawned a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that, among oth­er things, low­ered the min­i­mum age from 17 to 16. At the time, lead­ers promised to off­set that with a law rais­ing the age to 18, which would cor­re­spond to the laws of 19 states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, but that promise remains to be kept.

With the cur­rent ses­sion almost half over, nei­ther crim­i­nal jus­tice com­mit­tee has so much as sched­uled a hear­ing on SB 224, by Sen. Victor Crist, R‑Tampa, or on its com­pan­ion, HB 63, of which Reps. Gus Bilirakis, R‑Tarpon Springs, and Frank Peterman, D‑St. Petersburg, are co-spon­sors. Crist says he’s been promised a hear­ing next week. Floridians should hold Senate President Jim King and House Speaker Johnnie Byrd respon­si­ble if those bills fail to pass.

Sources

St. Petersburg Times