Death and demagoguery Tallahassee lawmakers haven't given serious attention to reforms that would end the worst inequities of the death penalty in Florida. Members of the Florida House of Representatives spent more time the other day getting Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke's autograph than they gave to a debate on the death penalty. The amendment is grotesquely unnecessary. Its real purposes are to demagogue the issue and to put down the Florida court for having tossed out a similar amendment, after the voters approved it in 1998, for the good reason that the ballot language was misleading. The legislature's main motive that time was to protect the use of the electric chair, a moot issue now that the law prescribes lethal injection.
Most states do.
Forbid execution of the mentally retarded, as 13 other states do. Establish a modern, scientific definition of mental illness, and prohibit death in those cases also. Spare juveniles, as 15 other states do. These steps, especially the unanimous or supermajority jury recommendation, would eliminate most of the cases now consuming half the Supreme Court's time and make it more likely that those reaching its docket are sustainable. Robert Shevin, attorney general when the law was passed, has urged this.