Real progress in Florida justice reform at the local level. Three Florida incumbent State Attorneys were booted out of office at least partly due to extreme and excessive sentencing and high use of the death penalty. Angela Corey – Duval, Mark Ober – Hillsborough, and Jeff Ashton – Orange. The incoming State Attorneys have indicated they will not use use the death penalty as much as their predecessors.
Hillsborough and Duval are among the top 16 death sentencing counties in the nation identified in the recent Harvard Law report as having the most new sentences of death and imposing them unfairly. The lessons learned by overzealous state attorneys being thrown out of office due to harsh and excessive sentencing should make the others more receptive to seeking the death penalty less often.