A bill titled “Sentencing in Capital Felonies” (SB 280 and HB 527) in the Florida legislature is rapidly making its way towards passage. This bill takes steps to reform Florida’s flawed death penalty program by requiring a unanimous jury for a death sentence. However, this reform will not fix the many fatal flaws of this wasteful and unnecessary government program.
Now is the time to end the death penalty in Florida, not mend it!
The math is simple:
- Florida’s Death Penalty costs taxpayers over $50 million a year more than the cost of life in prison with no parole;
- Taxpayers could pay up to $200 million or more in additional costs to try to re-sentence 135-200 men and women on Florida’s Death Row to death;
- Due to budget cuts, vital public safety programs could be cut by 10% in 2017;
- So far 26 individuals have been exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to Florida’s Death Row;
- Recent polling shows 62% of Floridians now support life without parole over executions;
- Prosecutors are actively seeking death in 313 cases and report 66 are ready for trial;
- The alternative sentence of life in prison with no parole makes executions unnecessary.
The cost of maintaining Florida’s death penalty program far outweighs any imagined benefits.
Contact your Florida legislator today and call for an extension of the current pause on executions, and for the State of Florida to conduct a complete and impartial review of Florida’s death penalty program to determine cost, deterrence, accuracy, impact on victims’ families, impartiality, and most importantly – necessity.
Click here to find your legislator’s contact information and then use variations of the messages below and any of the points above to call their office or send them an email.
Sample Email
Subject: SB 280/HB 527 – Sentencing in Capital Felonies
Dear Representative/Senator,
I’m contacting you today about “Sentencing in Capital Felonies” (SB 280 and HB 527). Now is not the time to mend the death penalty in our state, it’s time to end it. Instead of trying to put a Band-Aid on a terminally flawed program, we need to call for an extension of the current moratorium on executions and direct the State of Florida to conduct a complete and impartial review to determine cost, deterrence, accuracy, impact on victim’s families, impartiality, and necessity.
Please help to end this wasteful and unnecessary government program.
Your constituent,
Sample Phone Script
Hello, I’m calling about “Sentencing in Capital Felonies” (SB 280 and HB 527) and ask (Senator/Representative Last Name) to call for an extension of the current break from executions in our state.
Florida’s death penalty program costs taxpayers over $50 million a year over and above the cost of life in prison with no parole.
Now is not the time to try to mend the death penalty in our state, it’s time to end it. The State of Florida should extend the pause in executions and conduct a complete and impartial review to determine cost, deterrence, accuracy, impartiality, impact on victim’s families, and necessity of the death penalty.