TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a bill that will allow juries to impose the death sentence even if all 12 jurors do not agree.
He is also likely to approve a second bill passed by the lawmakers on Tuesday that would make sexual battery of a child under age 12 a death penalty offense.
Maria DeLiberato, a capital defense lawyer, told ABC News the newly signed legislation would discount Black and brown jurors' voices and make Florida an"extreme" state with the lowest threshold to sentence offenders to death. DeSantis has openly pushed for the change since a jury voted 9-3 last October to execute Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz. The teen instead received the statutorily mandated sentence -- life without the possibility of parole.
"We all can agree that child rape is probably the most horrific crime we can think of. But the issue here is it has already been decided that it's unconstitutional" to invoke the death penalty in those cases,” DeLiberato, who is also the executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said.
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