Recently, the Tampa Bay Times published a guest column by former Florida Supreme Court justice Raoul Cantero and Mark Schlakman, senior program director for the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University and board chairman for the Innocence Project of Florida. Schlakman also is a past member of the American Bar Association’s Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. 

Cantero and Schlakman periodically publish joint articles regarding Florida’s death penalty practice.  See our prior posts discussing a few of them, including:

Here’s an excerpt, we encourage you to read their latest column in its entirety: 

Challenging the status quo to promote fairness and impartiality in our justice system can be a daunting task even for legal practitioners. When Florida’s death penalty process is at issue, the task can be further complicated because such efforts are often equated with being soft on crime or insensitive to victims’ issues. . ..

More than five years ago, the American Bar Association released a comprehensive report developed by a team of eight Florida-based experts that raised serious concerns about Florida’s death penalty process. . . . Few of its recommendations have been implemented.