State is set to execute fifth U.S. veteran during record-breaking year for number of executions in the Sunshine State.
As Florida prepares to execute its fourth U.S. veteran this year, more than 130 U.S. veterans in nearly every branch of service have requested for Gov. Ron DeSantis to end the state’s executions of convicted vets.
A delegation of scores of American veterans will gather Wednesday morning in the state’s capital in Tallahassee to issue a plea in a signed letter to DeSantis, imploring the two-term Republican to stop Florida’s executions of American military service veterans.
“To execute a veteran who was broken by war and left without adequate care is not justice,” the letter by veterans with a combined 1,400 years of service reads in part.
“It is a failure of duty,” it added. “It is the final abandonment.”
Wednesday’s press event and letter presentation in Tallahassee organized by the Center for Veteran Criminal Advocacy will highlight advocates and Tom Dunn, a retired U.S. Army officer and attorney for Florida death row inmate and veteran Kyle Bates.
“Executing our nation’s warriors should call for deep soul searching,” said Art Cody, the center’s director, on Monday. “We owe veterans better than what they are now receiving in Florida.”
Bates is scheduled for death Aug. 19 and, if executed as planned, will be Florida’s fourth veteran and tenth individual this year executed in the Sunshine State.
Cody, a lawyer who later served as a U.S. Navy captain, noted that the U.S. veteran population has “undergone an experience profoundly different than civilians.”
“The arduous, and, at times, gruesome conditions that are part and parcel of war include the daily threat of death from various sources and viewing the aftermath of the carnage of modern war,” he said in a statement.
“Such frequent association with violence and death does not leave one unscathed,” he continued.
Roughly 5% of the U.S. population are veterans, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The veteran-supported letter to the former GOP presidential candidate pointed out that five U.S. vets — Bobby Joe Long, Duane Owen, Edward James, Jeffrey Hutchinson and Edward Zakrzewski — had been put to death since DeSantis took office in January 2019.
“There are close to 30 veterans remaining on death row, and countless others facing death penalty trials throughout the state,” the letter says.
U.S. Army Master Sergeant Brent Schneider, an assistant public defender, said Monday in a release how Florida should be “protecting our veterans” and instead ensure those who return home with injuries “both visible and invisible, get the support that they deserve.”
“They have served honorably to protect us, and now we have a duty to ensure that they are protected and not subject to execution,” he went on to say.
DeSantis, 46, was a lawyer and U.S. Navy veteran prior to his 2007 Iraq War deployment.
“We can never be a veteran friendly state when our leader is signing off on their deaths at the hands of the State,” the letter to DeSantis stated.
“We urge you now to lead from a place of bravery, to return to the honor code from your service and to stop setting the executions of our fellow soldiers.”
Data by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation suggests that veterans represent around 10% of prisoners on death row in the United States.
Last month, religious leaders across Florida also requested that DeSantis put a pause on state executions after it saw more prisoners executed in a single year since the penalty was reinstated nearly a half century ago.
Ron Wright, a former Florida death row inmate since exonerated, also urged DeSantis on Monday to “recognize the humanity” and to “take action to prevent their needless deaths.”
“To execute our brave men and women who have served in our armed forces is a betrayal,” Wright said.
Meanwhile, the live-streamed event on Wednesday in Tallahassee will start at 11 a.m.
