FLORIDA — Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman said on Aug. 14 that he has “lived with regret” for not commuting death sentences during his time in office, while warning that Florida’s current execution process is plagued by “secrecy and racial bias,” according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Siegelman pointed to two recent Florida execution cases — one on Aug. 19 involving Kayle Bates and another on Aug. 2 involving Curtis Windom — claiming they show “surface systematic problems in Florida’s death penalty system.”
Reflecting on his own decisions in Alabama, Siegelman said, “As governor of Alabama, I had a chance to commute death sentences to life in prison without parole. I didn’t.” He referenced the case of Freddie Lee Wright, adding that if he had known then about “the abuse of power by prosecutors, I would have commuted his sentence and others to life without parole.”
He argued that regardless of one’s stance on capital punishment, any covert method of choosing who is executed “destroys any trust or faith the public has for officials to apply the law fairly.” He urged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to use “the constitutional power to set wrong to right” while he still can.
Siegelman highlighted racial disparities in the death penalty. He noted that “41% of homicide victims are white, yet 76% of executions since 1976 involved white victims.” In Florida, the imbalance is even sharper, with “88% of all executions [involving] white victims and 95% of executions that Florida’s [current] governor has authorized [involving] white victims.” He also cited Death Penalty Information Center data showing that one in every 8.3 people has been exonerated from death row.
Siegelman raised concerns about the death warrant for Curtis Windom, saying, “Florida’s governor signed a death warrant for Curtis Windom” shortly after Kayle Bates’ case “exposed racial disparities in Governor Ron DeSantis’ decisions about who to execute next.” Both Windom and Bates are Black men sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries.
He added that in the Bates case, DeSantis “used Windom’s death warrant to defend his non-discrimination argument,” but argued that if DeSantis “had not signed Mr. Windom’s execution warrant, the governor’s racial bias was indefensible.”
“Since Florida’s governor is the sole official making these life-or-death decisions,” Siegelman said, “it is up to him to ensure the execution selection process is not infected with racial bias.”
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