CAPRICCIO
Get Rid of the Goat
The word “capricious” comes from the Italian “capriccio,” meaning whim or sudden start. It is possible the word stems from “capra,” which is Latin for goat (Capricorn, get it?) because of the friskiness or sudden, unpredictable movement of goats. Many have heard the phrase “arbitrary and capricious” in reference to the application of the death penalty, but most people, including many lawyers, have not really ever given much though to exactly how that plays out.
A current first degree murder prosecution in Jacksonville is illuminative. In Florida, the prosecutor alone decides whether to seek death in any given case, and initially did so in the prosecution of two defendants in a murder-for-hire case: Mario Fernandez Saldana and Shaina Gardner. The two (who are represented by extremely competent privately-retained attorneys) are charged with hiring a hit man to kill Gardner’s ex-husband Jared Bridegan; until recently, that hit man had worked a deal with the prosecutor’s office to testify against the two but has now withdrawn from that agreement.
Gardner and Bridegan had twin children who are now young teenagers living with her very wealthy parents. Recently, the elected prosecutor in Jacksonville announced her office would no longer be seeking the death penalty in these cases because the family of the victim was concerned about the lasting trauma for the two children. While I am happy that the state is pursuing two fewer death sentences, most of my death penalty clients had children themselves. I fully believe that because my clients were not white and wealthy the prosecutor never once considered the lasting trauma for any of my clients’ children. In my last death penalty sentencing hearing, my client’s fourteen-year-old son took the stand and told the jury how much he would miss his dad. No one considered what trauma he will face when his father is executed.
The biggest failure of the death penalty is its unequal application—poor minorities still make up the largest populations on America’s death rows. There is no way an equitable and fair application of the death penalty can ever occur—it will always be capricious, based on prosecutorial whim. This unpredictably-moving goat has no place in any system of justice. Abolish the death penalty now!
Bless you for your good work for these desperate and impoverished people you have represented as a public defender and lawyer, as well as a writer.
The odds are 1 of 11 that folks, mostly impoverished men and majority of color, will get off death row -- if they are not executed first. Some of those taken off death row actually find their way to freedom, too. It's also less expensive to keep dangerous elements of our society locked up for life, rather than put them to death. (This is despite the efforts made by folks like Ron DeSantis to speed up the process.) So, both logically and financially the death penalty is not good. And, as attorney Sopp says, there is a psychic price to be paid for executing someone's father or male relative, a price that may redound for more than a single generation.
And, a cheerful stat: US News recent rankings
UF’s law school tied at No. 34 with Florida State University’s law school and three other programs.