Florida to execute first inmate in 4 years as state hopes to introduce lowest death penalty threshold in the country

The first execution in four years is scheduled in Florida this week, prompting death penalty supporters to protest it and push for the death penalty to be abolished.

On Monday, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for 59-year-old Donald Dillbeck, who was convicted of fatally stabbing a woman during a carjacking at a Tallahassee mall in 1990. The stabbings occurred two days after he escaped custody while serving a life sentence for the murder of a sheriff’s deputy in 1979. Dilbeck’s execution is scheduled for Thursday, and his lawyers are traveling the state this week to protest the death penalty.

“Why kill people who kill people to show that Americans are killing people wrong?” Journey of Hope co-founder Susanne Bosler told FOX 13.

On Monday, Bosler was part of a group outside the Hillsborough County Courthouse protesting the death penalty as part of the Death Penalty Action tour of the state. She had previously worked to commute the death sentence of her father’s killer, James Campbell, to life in prison, an attempt that was eventually granted after four trials.

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Donald Dilbeck, 59, was convicted of fatally stabbing a woman during a carjacking at a Tallahassee mall in 1990, execution scheduled for Thursday. (Florida Department of Corrections)

“If James had been given life at the very beginning, I would have had all these years to start healing right after it happened, so that today I would be in a better condition, lighter, calmer and better with myself,” Bosler said. .

There are currently 301 people on death row in Florida, and there has been no execution in the Sunshine State since 2019, the longest no execution in the state since 1983. And lawmakers in Florida are pushing for a bill to ease sentencing. someone to death.

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Florida is due to hold its first execution in four years later this week. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrotsky, file)

House Bill 555, which is before the state legislature, would reduce the number of juries needed to sentence someone to death. State law currently requires a unanimous decision for a death sentence, but if the bill passes, only eight jurors will have to agree.

The threshold of eight jurors for the death penalty will be the lowest in the country. Only a few states do not require a unanimous jury decision, including Alabama, where 10 jurors must agree to a death sentence.

Florida lawmakers are pushing a bill to lower the threshold required for a death sentence. (Photo by AP/Pat Sullivan, file)

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“If I was going to help the government kill James, I would be just like James,” Bosler said. “I would be. My title would also be a killer so they don’t think that’s why we need to educate these people.”