NEWS
Florida's Death Row Deaths
Mike Vasilinda
Inmates on Florida’s Death Row have an equal chance of dying from old age as they do from lethal injection. Since 1993, 74 death row inmates have gone to their maker, but only half of them died from execution. Even supporters believe the system is broken.
Florida has four death row inmates over age 70. William Cruse, who opened fire in a grocery store, is 82. 54 others sentenced to death have already turned 60.
Some have been on death row more than three decades. Larry Spalding used to run the agency credited with keeping many of them alive and he says those with a lengthy stay will likely never be executed.
“They really have all but gone insane. Those cases are being resolved the way that live without parole is being resolved, they will die in prison.
Since 1993, Florida has executed 37 people. But just as many death row inmates have died of other causes.
Frank Valdez died at the hands of guards, the other 36 from bad health.
Prosecutors, like Tallahassee State Attorney Willie Meggs, are livid.
“In my opinion, the governor ought to sit down and sign about 60 or 70 of them today. And let’s get started and do a couple a week, until we get caught up.”
But Larry Spaulding and others who have fought the state and won say the backlog will never be cleared.
“Even if you got serious about the death penalty and we started executing one or two a month, you’d still never catch up.”
And even prosecutor Meggs concedes the way the death penalty is applied now makes it “totally Ineffective.”
“We found out that there’s over 800,000 children reported missing every year. That’s one every 40 seconds. 350,000 are parent abductions, 56,000 are stranger abductions, and we have over 450, 000 runaways across America.”
“They are the biggest danger. Anybody that reads the paper or watches television, have you ever seen there been more of a need for this, than right now? I mean, the timing is perfect, and I hope our whole nation gets behind it. I’ve got 21 grandchildren. My other ones are all old and gone, but I want to be sure that they participate in this.”
:
At least one of the 37 who died from cancer on death row was posthumously exonerated by DNA after spending more than 15 years facing death.
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