Tonight, we the people of the State of Florida, killed 64 year old James Ford. We killed a man who had the emotional and intellectual capacity of a teenager. We killed the father of three daughters, whom he loved and who loved him back. We killed a man who was no longer a danger to anyone, who could have and should have lived out his remaining days in prison.
When the Governor signed James’ warrant last month and the guards came to pull him from his cell to take him to death watch, James was doing his weekly bible study with his death row neighbors. With tears in his eyes as he was hauled away, he thanked one of his neighbors for teaching him so much of the Lord’s word over the years.
The State wants you to believe that everyone on death row is a monster. That they are subhuman, or less than, or somehow “other.” It’s simply not true. We ripped a man away from his bible study and led him to his death.
These are the people we are killing. James is more than the worst thing he has ever done. We grieve for James’ victims, and we acknowledge and grieve that his crimes left another child parentless. We grieve for his daughters, who are now also without their father. But this case could have ended 30 years ago with a life sentence, and the healing for the victims could have started then.
There is so much misinformation and fear-mongering in the State of Florida right now. Today, as the State prepared to kill James, our legislature hurriedly passed, and the Governor signed, sweeping anti-immigrant legislation. This legislation included an “automatic” and “mandatory” death penalty for immigrants who are convicted of capital crimes. No jury, no individualized sentence, just automatic death. This is of course blatantly unconstitutional, a fact which our lawmakers knew and boasted about. When the respect for the rule of law is lost, we are all in grave danger.
The death penalty debases us all. The hatred debases us all. We have to do better.
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FADP is a Florida-based, state-wide organization of individuals and groups working together to end the death penalty in Florida. Our network includes dozens of state and local groups and thousands of individual Floridians, including murder victims’ family members and other survivors of violent crime, law enforcement professionals, families of the incarcerated, and death row exonerees.