Proposed legislation seeks to expand Florida's execution methods

Bills filed in the House (HB 903) and Senate (SB 1604) seek to expand Florida’s execution methods.

Bills filed in the House (HB 903) and Senate (SB 1604) seek to expand Florida’s execution methods. The House bill is sponsored by Rep. Jacques. The Senate bill is sponsored by Senator Martin. The execution-related provisions are part of a large proposal related to prison conditions and corrections.

Photo of the electric chair at UCI (Raiford, FL), downloaded from Florida Memory

As to executions, the legislation proposes to add the following language to section 922.10.

Further, the legislation proposes to add the following language to section 922.105(3):

The legislation opens the door for the State to use any execution method that a court has not said is unconstitutional--which could include anything from firing squad to nitrogen hypoxia to any new method that hasn't yet been created or tested.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard this legislation today at 1:30 p.m. Senator Martin (the sponsor of this legislation) is the Chair of the Committee.

Sen. Garcia asked if there are methods other than electrocution and lethal injection. Sen. Martin says there are other options “out there” that have been used by other states. He said there have been issues in the past where companies making lethal injection chemicals wouldn’t make the drugs available, so the bill seeks to ensure that the State can fulfill the Governor’s orders to complete executions. Sen. Garcia asked what the other options are. Sen. Martin responded, “[T]here are a lot of other options that are out there.”

Grace Hanna (Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty) spoke in opposition to the bill, saying that the legislation “seeks to expand Florida’s execution method without providing any concrete information on the execution methods that would be used,” which “could include anything for firing squad to nitrogen hypoxia to any new method that hasn’t yet been created or tested.” She said that “Florida has a long history of botched executions, including several occasions in which [the State] quite literally set the inmate’s head on fire.”

The Committee approved the legislation. A video of the hearing will be available online here.

The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee is hearing this legislation tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. You can watch the meeting online on The Florida Channel here. I will review the meeting on the next legislative update—coming out Saturday.

You can read more about the legislation here.