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Florida lawmakers backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis are pushing a bill that clearly contradicts Supreme Court precedent — to the extent that precedent matters at the post-Dobbs court.
According to the Tampa Bay Times:
Acting on a proposal from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers filed legislation Wednesday to allow the death penalty for adults who sexually batter children younger than 12.
One problem with the proposed law is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is not allowed in such a nonhomicide case. That’s according to the 2008 ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana, where the court sided with the defendant by a 5-4 vote.
Since 2008, however, the court has undergone a revolution in its membership. For one thing, the author of that bare majority ruling, former swing justice Anthony Kennedy, has been replaced by the more-conservative Brett Kavanaugh. Another member of the majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has been replaced by the much more conservative Amy Coney Barrett.
Indeed, the court has shifted further rightward on the death penalty generally and on the Eighth Amendment specifically. That amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment and guided the relevant 2008 precedent. Of course, we all know how much this court reveres precedent, in the wake of the Dobbs ruling that tossed Roe v. Wade.
So while this DeSantis-backed legal maneuver is clearly banking on the Republican-majority Supreme Court chucking another precedent aside, I can’t guarantee that it won’t succeed.