He must be getting bored with the tedious work of pretending to be an actual governing human being concerned with the economy and jobs and welfare of the state, and Governor Rick Scott is feeling like the netherworld is just passing him by. He’s tired of all the appealing and waiting around to dispense justice– Rick Scott just wants to kill, kill, kill! provide a small government remedy to the problem of the state not handling its business fast enough, and Gov. Rick Scott is all about business.
So, a couple of weeks ago, the Florida Senate and Institution For The Criminally Insane sent Governor Rick Scott a bill called, “The Timely Justice Act,” designed to expedite the emptying of the backlog of death row inmates in the state by cutting the appeal process short, and by reducing the number of appeals that are based upon incompetent representation by asserting that “any attorney twice found to have provided “constitutionally deficient representation” will be suspended from handling death appeals for five years.”
Incompetent lawyers in the state of Florida whose deficient representation leads to the unlawful death of another human being gets you two chances to make good, and after that, you get five years! not five years in prison, mind you, but five years of time off from litigating life and death cases to really think about how your actions led to wrongful executions(plural). And while you will likely make use of some sort of appeal process, you can rest assured that you yourself won’t be denied the right to die expeditiously in Rick Scott’s prisons for your incompetence.
But here is where the “both sides are the same” meme is hanged for murdering logic and reason in a thought bubble gone bad:
“Is swift justice fair justice?” asked Democratic party Senator Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa attorney who voted against the bill. “We have seen cases where, years later, convicted people were exonerated,” she said.
“I don’t see the reason for the swiftness, especially with DNA evidence that can exonerate,” said Senator Maria Sachs, who is also an attorney and a Democrat.
But Republican Senator Rob Bradley said, “this is not about guilt or innocence, it’s about timely justice.” Frivolous appeals designed only for delay are not fair to victims and their families, he said.
“This is not about guilt or innocence.” It’s about executing someone, for some crime, somewhere, out of fairness to the families. He’s got to be guilty of something, right?
Matt Gaetz, a Republican who sponsored the bill in the Florida House of Representatives, got right down to the heart of the matter when he carefully and rationally explained the legal implications of the bill, saying:
“Only God can judge, but we sure can set up the meeting.”
These people are making life and death decisions.
Florida is the only state in the country that allows juries to sentence you to death by a simple majority of 7 to 5 because justice can never wait for a better jury of your peers to come along and not fuck this up.
There are 400 men and five women currently on Death Row in the state, and Florida Republicans under the ghoulish leadership of Rick Scott need that space for some boxes and things.