Should the State KILL?

When does the state have the right to kill?

How one answers that question—specifically, the trigger phrases that make a state execution morally just—reveals a lot about one’s own character and biases.

Of late, Gov. Rick Scott has attempted to score political capital against a state attorney to the south of here, Aramis Ayala.

Ayala has made national news by refusing to pursue the death penalty against brutal cop killer Markeith Loyd.

That decision proved to be controversial for Sunshine State Republicans, a group that has bloodied itself via internecine fighting over economic incentives in recent months.

Rick Scott is on one side of this divide. The Florida House is on the other.

However, Republicans could all agree that if ever a case justifies capital punishment, Loyd’s is it.

And Scott threw some muscle around, breaking the fourth wall between the governor’s office and that of a regional state attorney.

In March, Scott took the Loyd murder case away from Ayala, due to her reluctance to pursue the death penalty.

In April, Scott scored another pre-emptive strike: reassigning 21 first-degree murder cases that “represent a horrific loss of life.”

“State Attorney Ayala’s complete refusal to consider capital punishment for the entirety of her term sends an unacceptable message that she is not interested in considering every available option in the fight for justice,” Scott said last week.

“Every available option” is interesting phrasing. As is “unacceptable message.”

Rick Scott is the same dude who, when a grand jury called for the removal of former public defender Matt Officeshower, essentially said “Netflix and chill, and let the voters work it out in a few years.”

The governor’s policy was laissez-faire in that case. Yet in the case of Ayala, elected by voters who presumably knew her positions on issues, in an expensive campaign in an expensive media market, Scott’s taking away her cases.

And the Florida House wants to scale back her office budget—some are even talking about removing Ayala.

Who was, I repeat, as duly elected as any of the men attempting to decide her fate.

Last week, I asked Gov. Scott how much of this was political, on his part, an attempt to satisfy a red-meat base that always wants the tough-talk option.

“First off, this has nothing to do with politics. It has all to do with—think about the victims. This was about three weeks ago now when the State Attorney in Orlando said that she wouldn’t pursue the Markeith Loyd case to the fullest extent of the law. It just personally bothered me,” Scott related.

“What bothers me is that’s her job. Think about the victims: These are horrendous crimes. Think about the families: How do they feel when somebody says ‘I’m not going to prosecute somebody to the fullest extent of the law’.”

“We sent [the case] to Brad King, but there’s no politics in this. This is what’s the right thing to do,” Scott said.

Brad King is another state attorney.

I then asked Scott this question: Is it the death penalty or nothing for Loyd?

“Brad King will pursue the case to the fullest extent of the law. Whatever happens—you don’t just say you’re not going to pursue things to the fullest extent of the law. It’s the law of the state! Follow the law!”

The “fullest extent of the law” is an interesting phrase.

One could pose the question regarding which is worse: a quick death or a slow demise, eating junk food inside grim, institutional walls, a time when you would know nothing but the souls of the damned who bunk and eat and shit and spunk right beside you.

Is death worse than the slow agony of a forever-sunset, descending below the barbed-wire fence?

I don’t have answers to those questions.

I’m sure Scott believes Loyd should be subjected to the death penalty. I’m also sure that those who voted for Ayala trusted her to make the right decisions–even the unpopular ones.

I think of our own state attorney, Melissa Nelson. Like Ayala, she was elected as an avatar of reform. Unlike Ayala, she almost certainly will, at some point, have a case that crosses her office’s threshold for a state execution.

Nelson, riding a wave of popularity as the Corey purge peaked, told me that she knew it would be inevitable that she would make a decision with which lots of people would disagree.

The implication of that conversation was on a smaller scale than having the state’s political establishment moving to take away the office you won due to nothing more than a philosophical difference.

The Republicans like to say “elections have consequences.”

Either Ayala is, or isn’t, a popularly elected state attorney. Barring a legitimate cause (and we sure tested that threshold in L’Affaire Shirk), the governor needs to let Ayala do her job.

He’s got enough problems, after all, in his own party.