TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Ninety-six people have been executed in the Sunshine State since Florida started the death penalty in 1979. The latest happened Thursday night.
Eric Branch was executed by the state of Florida 25 years after the rape and murder of Susan Morris. She was a college student and her body was found naked and left in the woods.
Friday afternoon, a group of residents remembered the lives of both people.
They call themselves the “Tallahassee Citizens Against The Death Penalty.” Around 20 people gathered inside the capitol to reflect on the state’s most recent execution.
Florida changed the rules for a death penalty sentence in 2016. A unanimous jury is now required. Branch’s jury wasn’t, but the new rules exclude those who were sentenced before 2002.
The group says it doesn’t condone what happened to Susan Morris, but it can’t support the capital punishment system here.
"Leaving aside the question of whether it is ever right to deliberately take the life of another person when we don't have to do that," said Walter Moore, a member of the Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty. "We can keep society safe by locking a person away if that is what is called for."
The group hopes Florida abolishes the death penalty as other states have done in recent years. Members say there have been more executions during Rick Scott’s time in office than any other governor in Florida’s history.
They say there have been too many cases of wrongful convictions and that they favor life in prison over execution. The group said it’s actually more expensive to keep the death penalty than to abolish it.
“Tallahassee Citizens Against The Death Penalty” was created in the late seventies.
The group held a vigil outside the governor’s mansion last night, at the same time Eric Branch was being executed.
