TALLAHASSEE—The Florida Legislature sent Gov. Ron DeSantis a severe new bill on Wednesday allowing Florida prosecutors to sentence human traffickers to death if they've exploited a young child or someone with mental disabilities.
DeSantis already pledged at a press conference last week to sign the bill, SB 1804, into law.
The measure, which takes effect Oct. 1, comes days after DeSantis tied the state record for most death warrants approved in a year and marks the latest step in Florida's massive strides toward expanding the death penalty.
Filed by Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin, SB 1804 creates the crime of "Capital Human Trafficking of Vulnerable Persons for Sexual Exploitation." Violators, who include criminals who have trafficked, exploited, or profited off of sexually abusing mentally incapacitated Floridians or kids under 12, can face the death penalty.
This is only Florida's latest move in pushing more crimes under the capital felony umbrella. In 2023, DeSantis supported and signed two first-in-the-nation laws making it easier to execute certain criminals. One made it a capital felony to rape a child under 12 years old, and the other lowered the threshold to recommend death from 12 jurors to eight.
Just last month, DeSantis approved another new law allowing Florida to expand its death penalty methods past lethal injection and electrocution to "anything not deemed unconstitutional" in the event of running out of execution drugs. Taking effect July 1, this means the Sunshine State could employ lethal gas, hangings, firing squads, or a potentially new, never-before-seen tactic.
Though the governor has lauded increased expansion methods, groups like Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty have called SB 1804 a step that does nothing but perpetuate "the cycle of violence."
“As a former prosecutor, a capital defense attorney, and now as the director of FADP, I’ve seen firsthand how childhood sexual abuse and human trafficking devastate lives," the organization's Director, Maria DeLiberato said in a statement last week, released soon after the governor promised to sign SB 1804.
"This law does nothing to end the cycle of violence. Instead, it risks retraumatizing survivors and squanders resources that should be used to protect them," she added.
DeSantis has rapidly ramped up executions in 2025, signing his latest death warrant for Michael Bernard Bell earlier this week. If all eight executions go through as intended, DeSantis will tie the all-time state record for most executions in a single year.
The record was first set by Gov. Bob Graham in 1984 and tied by Gov. Rick Scott in 2014. The state with the most single-year executions is Texas under Gov. George W. Bush, who oversaw 40 executions in 2000.
