One Year Later: Florida Capital Sex Statute
One year ago today, Florida’s new capital sex statute went into effect. To date, no one has been sentenced to death under this new statute.
One year ago today, Florida’s new capital sex statute went into effect. (TFDP covered that here.) The bill was lauded by conservatives as a step towards being tough on crime and protecting children. Liberals expressed concern for the constitutionality of the bill in light of long-standing U.S. Supreme Court precedent advising that the death penalty cannot be imposed for a non-homicide crime.
Prosecutions
Since the law went into effect, prosecutors have had the ability to seek the death penalty against defendants facing charges for certain sex crimes against children under the age of 12 that occurred after October 1, 2023.
Around the State, several charges filed since the law went into effect were eligible for the death penalty under the new statute, including charges filed in Polk County against Luis Angel Delgado-Baez and charges against four defendants in Palm Beach County—Matthew Cassini, Walquiria Cassini, and Ryan Londano.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, the only case in which prosecutors actually sought death in one of these cases was Joseph Giampa in Lake County in December 2023.
Giampa’s prosecution ended with him pleading guilty and agreeing to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, as TFDP covered here.
To date, no one has been sentenced to death under this new statute. As a result, there has not been an opportunity for litigation on the constitutionality of the statute.
Abuse Rate
According to data maintained by the Florida Department of Health, Division of Public Health Statistics and Performance Management, the rate of children experiencing sexual violence (aged 5-11 years) dropped from 43.7 in 2022 to 35.7 in 2023.
Of course, this statistic is not limited to the crimes that would be eligible for death under the new statute. Also, a drop in child sexual violence is not necessarily related to the statute, which only went into effect in