In March 2017, Rick Scott, Governor of Florida, responded to a State Attorney’s decision not to pursue the death penalty because of its demonstrable flaws by ordering her replacement with a prosecutor willing to engage in this lethal pursuit. Since then the governor has transferred 27 capital murder cases to his preferred prosecutor. Two of these cases have already resulted in juries voting for death sentences. In January 2016, Florida was eight executions short of becoming the fourth state in the USA to conduct 100 executions since 1976 when the US Supreme Court stopped it in its tracks. The Court ruled Florida’s capital sentencing statute unconstitutional for giving jurors only an “advisory” role in who would end up on death row. Eighteen months later, capital trials are back on and the Florida execution machine is being readied to kill again, starting on 24 August.
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