Death sentences plummet while life terms climb

ORLANDO - The number of criminals sentenced to die in Florida has dropped dramatically after peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while life sentences without parole have increased.

Of the 365 inmates on Florida's death row, 72 were convicted and sentenced in central Florida. Among them is David Sylvester Frances, who will learn within the next two months whether he is condemned to die for strangling an Orlando woman and her teenage niece four years ago.

If he is, the decision will buck a surprising trend: Death sentences during the past decade have dropped by 53 percent in Florida, and by 50 percent nationally.

Frances would become the 10th person in Florida to receive a death sentence this year. A decade ago, 39 people were sentenced to die in Florida. And 20 years ago, 38 received death sentences.

That's a major shift for Florida, which is known for some of the nation's most infamous executions - including those of serial killers Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos. Florida has a death row that's third in population behind California and Texas.

There is no single explanation for the trend.

It could reflect the simple fact that more violent criminals are in jail rather than on the street committing crimes. More likely, some experts say, it could represent juror ambivalence about capital punishment in light of a growing number of wrongful convictions.

There was no ambivalence Nov. 2, when jurors overwhelmingly recommended death for Frances, leaving the final decision to Circuit Judge John H. Adams.

But such decisions are increasingly rare. Since 1999, only three other convicted murderers in Orange and Osceola counties have received the death penalty. One of them was the retrial and resentencing of an earlier case.

"There are concerns about the fairness of the death penalty being voiced in lots of different places and in lots of different ways," said Michael Radelet, a former University of Florida professor who has studied Florida's death-penalty system for years. "I think the trend is away from the death penalty."

Prosecutors say stricter penalties for repeat offenders have removed many potential killers from society. They say that helps explain the statewide increase in life sentences and the drop in death sentences. And they say the death penalty continues to be reserved for killers considered the "worst of the worst."

Death-row peak in '80s

In the late 1980s, 50 people were added to the state's death row during one 12-month period. And through the mid-1990s, it wasn't unusual to see 30 or 40 convicted criminals sentenced to death in a year.

But during the past two fiscal years, the number of people sentenced to death statewide fell to nine and 10 per year, respectively.

Florida's trend mirrors national statistics released in September by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center which reported a 50 percent drop in death sentences nationwide from the 1990s to the 2000s. In Florida, the group found a 53 percent drop during that period.

"The first reason is the public's awareness of the mistakes the death-penalty system has made," said Richard C. Dieter, the organization's executive director. "That has caused a skepticism."

Beyond an increased awareness that some innocent people have ended up on death row and a possible shift in public sentiment about capital punishment, Dieter said, the costs of prosecuting death cases and later defending death sentences figure into the trend as well.

"Prosecutors are seeing death-penalty cases are going to cost an enormous amount of time and money," he said.

The expanded use of DNA testing to prove someone's guilt or innocence also has played a significant role in the decrease, according to the group's study.

Nationwide, since 1973, 117 people have been freed from death row after new evidence surfaced about those sentenced or other legal challenges succeeded, according to DPIC. Florida leads the nation in the number of people sentenced to death row and later exonerated or released: at least 21.

Though most Americans continue to support the death penalty, a growing number also appear willing to consider life in prison without parole as an option, the DPIC study concludes.

Judges still have the final say in determining a death sentence, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 gave juries more power in the decision-making process. Judges should go along with a jury's "advisory sentence" and may not override a jury's life recommendation with a death sentence. Before the ruling, they could.

Radelet, the former UF professor now teaching at the University of Colorado, said a combination of Florida's life-without-parole law, the high costs involved with prosecuting death cases and news of the exonerations have all contributed to the drop.

"The trend is toward restriction, if not abolition," he said.

Various reasons for drop

Prosecuting attorneys suspect different factors at play. Some say lower murder rates, appellate-court decisions and tougher laws requiring lengthy sentences for repeat and violent offenders have had an impact.

Others suggest the length of time inmates languish on death row before they are executed may be a factor in discouraging some prosecutors from seeking death sentences. In Florida, inmates stay an average of 11.85 years on death row before execution, according to the state Department of Corrections.

State Attorney Willie Meggs, president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said prosecutors and families of victims often become frustrated by the infrequency with which executions are carried out. Meggs said he must explain to victims' families in potential death-penalty cases the reality of capital punishment in Florida: Death often means life with appeals.

"I tell them, 'If we get the death penalty, this is not over, and it will probably not be over within your lifetime,' " Meggs said. Sometimes families of victims looking for "closure" prefer to see a life sentence rather than a death sentence followed by a decade of appeals, he said.

Abe Bonowitz of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a Gainesville-based group that opposes death sentences, said wrongful convictions and meaningful life sentences have probably swayed many jurors.

"The jury pool and people in general are becoming more concerned with evidence of unfairness in the system," Bonowitz said. "And people are more aware that life without parole means exactly that. That satisfies society's need to be safe and to punish."

Life sentences on rise

As the state's death sentences have dropped, the number of life sentences has increased from 388 in 1995-96 to 489 in 2002-03.

Meanwhile, the state's murder count has dropped from more than 1,000 per year during the mid- and late-1990s to 924 last year, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement statistics.

These figures support other theories for the drop in death sentences.

Randy Means, a spokesman for Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar, said tough-on-crime measures, such as "10-20-life" legislation and minimum mandatory sentences, have "taken a number of would-be murderers off the street."

In 1999, Lamar's office sent four people to death row from Orange County. But in nearly five years since then, the office has won just two additional death sentences in Orange and Osceola, according to DOC death-row statistics.

David Frances likely will become just the third new death-row inmate - since 1999 - to emerge from the 9th Judicial Circuit.

In November 2000, Frances and his younger brother went to the Orlando home of Helena Mills and her teenage niece Jo Anna Charles. The brothers strangled the women, whom they both knew, and then made off with jewelry, a computer-game system and Mills' car.

"It was a double homicide, and it was the egregious manner in which they were killed: manually with both hands and with a cord," said Assistant State Attorney Mark Wixtrom, explaining why he sought the death penalty in the Frances case. "These two innocent ladies in their home were killed by this man who knew them."

Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Norman Wolfinger said appellate-court decisions defining the kinds of cases that warrant death sentences and tougher laws punishing repeat offenders have played a role in the decrease as have other factors.

The combination means many of Florida's "worst monsters" are already in prison before they have the chance to be tried in a death case, Wolfinger said.

Meanwhile, potential death-sentence cases are scrutinized more now than 10, 15 or 20 years ago, Wolfinger said, because prosecutors and victims' family members know that life means life and that the courts will reverse certain cases.

"There's no sense in getting the death penalty if it's going to be reversed," said Wolfinger, who acknowledged that a death-penalty recommendation has become more difficult to win over the years.

"It was easier. Now it's not easy at all. The burden should be high," he said. "We are truly getting to the worst of the worst now," he said.

Despite the decline in death sentences, Wolfinger said he doesn't foresee a repeal of capital punishment in his lifetime.

"It's a necessary punishment for people who have an absolute disregard for human life," he said.

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