{"id":6569,"date":"2017-04-04T05:27:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T09:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=6569"},"modified":"2017-04-04T05:27:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T09:27:37","slug":"florida-governor-reassigns-21-murder-cases-part-death-penalty-dispute-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/04\/04\/florida-governor-reassigns-21-murder-cases-part-death-penalty-dispute-prosecutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida governor reassigns 21 more murder cases as part of death-penalty dispute with prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced Monday that he was removing a state attorney from about two dozen murder cases, escalating a dispute between the two officials<\/a> over the death penalty in one of the country\u2019s most active capital-punishment states.<\/p>\n

The announcement from Scott, a Republican, came a little more than two weeks after Aramis D. Ayala, a Democratic state attorney elected last year, announced that she would no longer seek the death penalty in cases<\/a>. In response, Scott swiftly said he was removing Ayala from the prosecution of a man charged with killing an Orlando police officer, the most high-profile case under her jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0dispute has reverberated far beyond the central Florida region where Ayala is the state attorney, drawing praise from advocates for criminal justice changes and prompting outrage from elected officials<\/a>\u00a0and a state police union<\/a>.\u00a0The feud has hinged on the killing of the police officer and on broader questions about the death penalty, which has been in limbo for more than a year in Florida after being twice struck down by courts as unconstitutional<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Republicans target Florida prosecutor who refuses to seek death penalty in fatal shooting of police officer<\/a>] <\/i><\/p>\n

On Monday, Scott expanded on his earlier decision to remove Ayala from the prosecution\u00a0of Markeith D. Loyd<\/a>, who is accused of fatally shooting Debra Clayton<\/a>, an Orlando police officer, after killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon.\u00a0Scott declared that he was issuing executive orders<\/a> reassigning 21 first-degree murder cases in Ayala\u2019s region to Brad King, the longtime state attorney for a neighboring judicial circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of these cases I am reassigning represents a horrific loss of life,\u201d Scott said in a statement announcing his executive orders. \u201cThe families who tragically lost someone deserve a state attorney who will take the time to review every individual fact and circumstance before making such an impactful decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott said that his office would \u201cdo all we can to aggressively fight for justice\u201d and that Ayala was not doing the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cState Attorney Ayala\u2019s complete refusal to consider capital punishment for the entirety of her term sends an unacceptable message that she is not interested in considering every available option in the fight for justice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

[After Florida prosecutor says she won\u2019t seek death penalty, governor reassigns case of slain police officer<\/a>] <\/i><\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Ayala assailed the decision, noting that she found out about the cases being reassigned only\u00a0through media reports.\u00a0The prosecutor \u201cremains steadfast in her position the governor is abusing his authority and has compromised the independence and integrity of the criminal justice system,\u201d the spokeswoman, Eryka Washington, said in the statement.<\/p>\n

Ayala is responsible for a stretch of central Florida encompassing Orange and Osceola counties, a region that includes Orlando and is among the state\u2019s most populous areas.\u00a0She had said she came to her decision regarding the death penalty after researching the issue and concluding that it does not make police officers safer and noting that sentences are often followed by an extended appeals process, offering families only a \u201cfalse promise\u201d of closure.<\/p>\n

While Ayala\u00a0had previously challenged Scott\u2019s decision to remove her from the Loyd prosecution, a judge last week backed Scott and denied a request<\/a> to stay the case\u2019s proceedings. Washington did not respond to a request for comment about whether Ayala would challenge the executive orders issued Monday.<\/p>\n

Groups opposed to the death penalty and criminal justice restructuring advocates had praised Ayala\u2019s decision not to seek death sentences, a remarkable declaration in a state that has one of the country\u2019s biggest death rows and most active death chambers.<\/p>\n

But local law enforcement leaders, including Orlando Police Chief John Mina, had denounced Ayala\u2019s decision not to seek a death sentence against Loyd, and she was criticized by her fellow Florida prosecutors. State lawmakers have also said that they will try to strip more than $1.4 million and 21 positions from her office, which Ayala\u2019s spokeswoman called \u201cpolitical posturing.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Florida Supreme Court says hundreds of death row inmates may get new sentences and avoid execution<\/a>] <\/i><\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s decision on Monday to pull Ayala from additional cases was praised by Pam Bondi, the state\u2019s attorney general and a supporter of capital punishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to commend Governor Rick Scott for his swift action for not only protecting citizens of Orlando but standing up for all crime victims and their families,\u201d Bondi said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s orders encompassed cases in which prosecutors have previously said they would seek the death penalty as well as several cases in which people have been sentenced to death, only for those sentences to be thrown into question by the recent chaos suffusing Florida\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n

Florida has been among the country\u2019s leaders in the death penalty. The state has the country\u2019s second-largest death row, trailing only Texas, and has carried out more executions in the modern era than all but three states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit.<\/p>\n

However, the Florida death penalty has been effectively suspended for more than a year. The U.S. Supreme Court in January 2016 struck down<\/a> the state\u2019s death-sentencing scheme, saying it gave judges, rather than juries, too much power. Scott promptly\u00a0signed a new death-penalty statute<\/a>, only for the Florida Supreme Court to strike that one down as unconstitutional<\/a>. Last month, Scott signed another death penalty statute \u2014 the state\u2019s third in about 15 months \u2014 in an attempt to restart executions in the state.<\/p>\n

But the rulings striking down the earlier statutes did more than just freeze upcoming executions. They also threw into uncertainty what would happen to nearly 400 inmates on Florida\u2019s death row<\/a>\u00a0and whether some or all would be eligible for new sentences. In December, the Florida Supreme Court provided some clarity, ruling that potentially hundreds of death row inmates<\/a> could seek new sentences because the earlier ones had been thrown out. Scott\u2019s orders on Monday included several cases that he said needed new sentences\u00a0because of those earlier rulings.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0 Mark Berman<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Source www.washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced Monday that he was removing a state attorney from about two dozen murder cases, escalating a dispute between the two officials over the death penalty in one of the country\u2019s […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":6571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[3178,623,417],"class_list":{"0":"post-6569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-aramis-d-ayala","10":"tag-death-penalty","11":"tag-florida","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6572,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569\/revisions\/6572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}