Florida seeks death penalty in Lake County
sex abuse case under new law
The Lake County case may be the first in which the state has sought a death sentence for a charge other than murder.
In what may be the first case of its kind in the state, central Florida prosecutors said Thursday they will seek the death penalty against a man accused of sexually abusing a child, making use of a new law that expanded capital punishment to sex crimes against children.
The office of State Attorney William Gladson, who prosecutes cases in five counties northwest of Orlando, filed a notice of intent to seek a death sentence for Joseph Andrew Giampa, who faces charges of sexual battery on a person younger than 12.
In a statement, Gladson’s office noted the “severity of the crime and its impact on the community. The decision to pursue the highest penalty reflects the gravity of the charges and the State Attorney’s Office’s dedication to holding criminals accountable for their actions,” the statement read.
The case appears to be the first in modern times in which Florida prosecutors have sought capital punishment for a charge other than murder. It is also a case likely to pose constitutional challenges, as U.S. Supreme Court precedent forbids the death penalty for the crime of rape.
Giampa, 36, of Leesburg, was arrested in November in Lake County.
An arrest affidavit in his case states that Lake County sheriff’s deputies questioned him at his home Nov. 2. During their conversation, Giampa led the deputies to a camper and allowed them to look at a video on a laptop computer, the document states. The affidavit describes the video as depicting a man sexually abusing a child while recording the act.
During a portion of the video, the man put the camera down and moved in front of it. Deputies identified the man as Giampa, according to the affidavit. Giampa is being held in the Lake County Jail.
In its notice of intent to seek the death penalty, Gladson’s office cited four aggravating circumstances that they say qualify death as an appropriate punishment. They include that the crime was committed for pecuniary gain and that it was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1977 ruled that applying the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In 2008, the high court likewise ruled in the case of Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty was unconstitutional in cases of child rape that do not result in the death of the victim.
Death of the soul, death of innocence, death of joy and confidence, death of so many attributes that can help make a person happy and successful in life. Arguably, the victim's sentence is worse than death.
State lawmakers this spring nevertheless passed a bill that made sexual battery on a child a death-eligible crime.
The text of the bill expressed a belief that prior high court rulings on the issue were “wrongly decided and that such cases are an egregious infringement of the states’ power to punish the most heinous of crimes.”
Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, sponsored the legislation. Martin, who was a prosecutor, said that in his experience, sexual battery cases are the most egregious and cause lifelong trauma.
YES!
“The most serious crime like sexual battery on a child needs the most serious punishment and the most serious penalty and the most serious deterrent,” Martin said.
Martin said he thinks both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court would find the law’s language constitutional.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, when he proposed the idea of pursuing the death penalty against child rapists, also said he believed the current iteration of the U.S. Supreme Court would support Florida’s law.
The bill passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by DeSantis.
It came in tandem with a bill that lowered the threshold for Florida juries to recommend the death penalty from a unanimous vote to an 8-4 vote. That law was seen as a response to the outrage that ensued after a Broward County jury fell short of recommending a death sentence for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz.
The law making child rape a death-eligible crime went into effect Oct. 1.
Robert Dunham, the former director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the court’s 2008 decision clearly closed the door on whether nonlethal crimes could be subject to the death penalty.
“There is nobody who understands the law who thinks otherwise,” he said.
Florida’s leadership has challenged the Eighth Amendment question in other ways.
This year Attorney General Ashley Moody signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief saying that it was “long overdue” for the U.S. Supreme Court to remove the “evolving standards of decency” test to determine if a punishment is cruel and unusual.
The brief stems from a case in Alabama, where an appeals court ruled a prisoner could not be executed because of his low IQ scores.
Stephen Harper, the founder of Florida International University’s Center for Capital Representation, worked on the Eighth Amendment case that led to the U.S. Supreme Court prohibiting the execution of juveniles.
He said the question of “evolving decency” can cause controversy, because at the time the Constitution was ratified, many punishments were considered acceptable that are out of practice today. In recent cases, the court has evaluated state laws, what professional organizations are saying and other materials to consider what penalties are appropriate.
He said it would look “very ugly” if the court were to reverse Kennedy v. Louisiana, the 2008 decision that determined the death penalty could only apply to a murder conviction.
It looks pretty ugly now, when a man can destroy a child's life and severely affect the rest of its family, and avoid the death penalty. Who is standing up for the children if the courts stand up for their rapists?
“The Supreme Court, in order to be legitimate, has to stick by prior decisions,” Harper said, “even if the current members of the court disagree with it.”
That's a crock! A year ago the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, an historical mistake of Biblical proportions. Child sexual abuse is equally as evil and horrendous as abortion.
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