This week on NewsNight death penalty reform campaigners press for changes amid a rise in the number of executions in Florida.

Plus, a look at a lawsui which offers details of a grand jury investigation into State Attorney Monique Worrell.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in Central Florida and how they shape our community.

Last week, governo DeSantis signed a death warrant setting a date for the 12th scheduled execution in Florida this year.

It extends the state's record setting capital punishment streak, which has seen it lead the nation in the number of people put to death.

But anti-death penalty campaigners say they're worried about th trend and recent laws in Florida that they fear could result i more people headed to death row.

News nights Kryste Knowles talks with an attorney who represents clients facing the death penalty.

>>The cases has been-- >>Going through the legal system can take years, even decades.

Even when the courts get it wrong.

>>Like, I just couldn't.

I couldn't wrap my mind around him, I'd represented this man for almost ten years.

And here he is in my car.

>>Since 2006, Maria DeLiberato has been doing post-conviction work.

>>This is his first Thanksgiving.

>>It was that same year her client, Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death.

>>Clement Aguirre, who was one of Florida's exonerees, spent 14 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

He had a jury vote of 7 to 5 and 9 to 3.

So we have seen that another problem with the non unanimous juries is you get people on death ro for crimes they didn't commit.

But Florida has that disturbing trend of having 30 death ro exonerations with more to come.

>>According to the Death Penalty Information Center, more death row inmates are exonerated i Florida than in any other state.

Aguirre was exonerated and released in 2018.

Before that, his time was running out.

For years, a majority on a jury was enough to sentence someone to death.

But in 2016, the courts ruled it must be unanimous.

Then, in 2023, not long after the sentencin of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz to life without parole, Florida eliminated the requirement for a unanimous jury in death penalty cases.

Now, only an 8 to 4 majority is required.

>>You shouldn't have it to wher if you're already convicted and you did the crime.

Whether to apply capital, one juro should not be able to veto that.

And I don't thin justice was served in that case.

If you're going to have capital, you have to administer it to the worst of the worst crimes.

>>Governor DeSantis has signed the most execution orders in one year in Florida's history.

Florida has already executed more people since 2023 than any other state.

>>He was making a presidential run at that point in 2023.

So we had sort of Parkland verdict his priority to be tough on crime and the 8 to 4 legislation.

So all of that happened in January of 2023.

DeLiberato says, had Aguirre not been exonerated in 2018, he would likely face execution soon.

>>When I got his case, he was in the post-conviction process.

We'd already been affirmed on direct appeal.

He was in state court.

He probably had.

He would be eligible about now, probably sooner.

So he would absolutely have been.

He probably would have been swept up in this particular execution spree.

>>Krystel Knowles reporting.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

And joining us in the studio this week, Christopher Heath from WKMG News 6.

Thanks for being here, Chris.

>>Glad to be here.

>>Good to see you.

Nick Papantonis coming bac to the program WFTV Channel 9.

Good to see you Nick-- >>Always happy to be here.

>>It's been a minute.

So glad to have you here on the program.

Massiel Leyva from Spectrum News 13 as well.

Good to see yo Massiel.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>I'm excited about my panel.

Three of my favorites on the on the program today.

Massiel let me start with you.

Governor DeSantis on Friday signed a death warrant for the state's 12th executio of the year at the state's 10th execution of the year, in fact was just this week on Tuesday.

What do we know about the, the case that the governor just signed the death warrant for?

>>Yes, we know that this case, is regardin 63 year old David Pittman.

We know that back i May of 1990, he was going through a divorce and he traveled to Polk County, where he fatally stabbed the parents of his then wife.

And also the little sister then set the house on fire.

So he was convicted of triple murder and arson.

So this will be happening on September 17th.

This is the 12th execution-- >>Scheduled for.

>>Yes.

>>Yeah.

Are there concerns, though, over the transparency behind the governor's decision making it when it comes to executions.

>>I mean, the death penalty is such a controversial issue, right?

And it's because and for good reason.

Right.

It' it is the it is final.

There is no going back.

And we have a histor in this country of, you know, especially in the past of people who did not commit the crime either being on death ro and getting rescued from that or being executed.

And so when we have these executions going on, one after the other, after the other, there are concerns from some, especially death penalty opponents, that maybe not enough is being put in, and maybe there needs to be more of that discussion happening.

>>Yeah, I mean, we heard the attorney in Krystel's piece just now, draw a link between the sort of the ramp up in executions and Governor DeSantis's presidential bid.

In 2023.

I mean, what do you make of that argument there's politics at play here.

And does does the White Hous have anything to do with this?

>>Absolutely, now there's a DOJ, DOJ memorandum of understandin that came down from Pam Bondi's office on down.

And it basically said, not only are we goin to be aggressive about the federal side, federal executions which were largely put on pause for several years, but we're also going to be aggressive about backing up states.

And one of the areas where they've said they want to pursue is novel litigation.

So to speak.

And this is pushing the envelope and really trying to get some test case in front of the Supreme Court.

In 2008, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty can only be used for murder.

Basically, you take somebody' life, you can be put to death.

Well, what if you want to use the death penalty for somebody who molested a bunch of children, didn't kill them, but molest a horrible crime, but can you use the death penalty for that?

The Supreme Court has said no, but it was a 5-4 decision.

And among the dissen was Roberts, Alito and Clarence Thomas.

Three justices currently on the bench.

So the DOJ and states would love to get another test case up to the Supreme Court, which would expand the scope of the death penalty.

>>Well, Florida is trying to do that, right?

I mean, they've tried to expand the scope of the death penalty in recent legislation.

That's just one of the recent legislative efforts that they've undertaken to try to expand its use.

>>There's been a number of them, right.

So the number one, child molesters, number two, the fact that it doesn't have to be unanimous, which is a preceden the Supreme Court has said time and time again Florida has gone back and said, no, we've had a couple of cases now go through.

And the concer every time we report these cases is, will we wind up with another trial because the courts have overturned what the state is trying to do again, what they are trying as best they can to push these cases through and get more executions.

>>An there's another thing out there, too, a 1970s case out of North Carolina that got to the Supreme Court and this was dealt with whether or not you could have a mandatory death penalty.

In other words, the death penalty is always on the table, but it's up to the jury.

It's up to the judge.

It's not final until you actually get to the sentencing phase.

But could you make it mandatory?

And the court held in the 70s no, but this is another one of those things where you've seen some AGs across the country and definitely coming from DOJ on down.

>>Yeah.

>>They'd like to see another case, get to the Supreme Court and maybe get that reversed.

>>Well one person who's been outspoken on the issue of the death penalty is state Attorney Monique Worrell.

Worrell, it's emerged, was subject to a recent grand jury probe into the alleged destruction of public records.

Although there have bee no indictments to date, details of that probe and allegations against Worrell and others come in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by a former chief investigato in the state attorney's office, which last year launched an investigation into alleged violations of public documents policies.

Worrell says that investigatio ramped up after her reelection, and she's describe the accusations in the lawsuit as baseless and defamatory.

Well, Nick's been across this story more than almost anyone, so here's a piece he filed recently on the state attorney's response.

>>What can you tel us about why you're here today?

>>You know, I can't tell you why I'm here today.

Seven months after Monique Worrell walked into the Polk County Courthouse to face a grand jury, she walked into a press conference to declare her innocence.>>Rather than accep the will of the people, they chose to waste taxpayer resource on a partisan witch hunt.

>>A lawsuit filed Wednesday by a former member of her executive team accused her from her first term of storing records on private Gmail accounts and deleting those records after Worrell was suspended.

He also said Worrell ordered some records be thrown away, but the grand jury never indicted Worrell or any of her deputies.

>>There was no such direction that was ever given from me to anyone on my team.

>>Worrell said the investigation ramped up the morning after she won reelection, describing a last ditch attempt by her predecessor, Andrew Bain and his team to remain in power.

We asked her if she would release the paper trail.

She said she's asking permission from the court since grand jury proceedings are secret.

>>I ran on a platform of transparency and it is always my intention to be transparent with the public.

>>Monique Worrell there.

Nick, you were among the first to report on that grand jury, probe that that apparently wrapped up in April, right?

What have we learned about i from that Eric Edwards lawsuit?

>>I mean, what we understand from this probe is that they were looking into the retention of records, and particularly whether Worrell ordered the destruction of records.

They also she also had one of her, chief of staff, retain certain records on her Gmail account that when there was a change in the administration, Andrew Bain came i that those records were deleted.

She has adamantly said, and I think we said there that that order never happened.

You know, this was this was all aboveboard.

And she's calling this a political lawsuit.

You know, this is a this was an attempt based on the timing of it coming out in January right after she won reelection.

To try and get her removed from office again.

Or at least set that stage up again.

>>Why is this happening in Polk County?

That is something that we still don't know.

>>Yeah.

>>Our you know, one of the theories out there is that it is away from her current district, so there's no conflicts o interest, but it's close enough, you know, right across the line from Osceola County where she does represent, but that is a question that we've continually asked.

Why Polk County and why did Bill Gladstone of the Fifth Circuit, which is Ocala based, why was he asked to do it?

And that was our clue when we actually got there that day in January was the first thin that we saw was him walking up.

And it's like you're not supposed to be here.

So what are you doing here?

>>Right.

Well, let's talk a little bit more about her, her response.

You mentioned it a second ago, but I think that Monique Worrell is, holding a press conference as we speak.

We're recording this program on the Thursday morning, by the way so things can change by airtime.

What are we hearing, from her in terms of her response?

And what is she seeking now?

>>So the response, the press conference is not related to this particular lawsuit.

The response, again, from that lawsuit being that, you know, this was above board, nothing happened.

No, no, no indictment.

The press conference today is going to be talking about the backlog of non arrest cases that they had.

They had something like 12,000, 11,000 cases which was high.

And it's been historically high.

They brought some statewide prosecutors in to help go through those cases because she said we weren't going to take any more until we got through them.

And they're going to announce a small reduction, something like 3,000 cases there.

Also, they did an internal audit to figure out policies and structure and what can change is going to be announcing, some of, what, you know, the findings of that audit and some changes that we're making.

I don't have the specifics on that yet.

>>Yeah.

>>The last thing that she's going to be talking about or she is talking about currently as we tape, this is the lack of funding that prosecutors get.

They get about a $68,00 a year starting salary in line with police.

But police get overtime and prosecutors don't.

And when you put them up against the big law firms, it'll pay well over six figures.

It's hard to not only recruit prosecutors, it's hard to retain them once they actually get some courtroom experience.

>>Well, what's clear here is that Monique Worrell is keeping a pretty high public profile to speak, despite the eyes of the state trained on her.

I mean, is there still a concern, do we think, amongst her and her team that removal is still a possibility?

I mean, the governor's done it before.

>>Oh, 100%.

The governor has shown a very quick trigger finger when it comes to removing elected officials.

More so, let's be honest, if they have a D at the end of their name he's already removed her once.

I know when I signed it, a couple of the debates between her and Andrew Bain leading up to the election, and that was a question that I presented to both of them was, you know, do you think you'll be removed if you get in again?

And she kind of demurred on that.

And the question got put to Bain, like, you know, will you say no to going back to do her job if the governor removes her?

It's still hanging over.

It's the sword of Damocles for this office.

He's already removed her once.

He very well could remove her again.

And his office is clearly focused on the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

I know when we've covered this.

In the past, we've looked at her numbers.

They're not entirely out of line of many of the other judicial circuits.

But this is where the focus is for this governor, because there is a political nature to this.

>>Well just remind us, why take us back to that time.

Just remind us why she was removed in the first place.

What was the reasoning?

>>Yes, this was back in August 2023.

The governor was claimin that she was being too lenient, on cases.

And she wasn't per se, given the harshest penalties, especially to cases related to juvenile and drugs.

So that was his argument at the time.

>>Things that the state law he said would require.

>>Would require exactly.

>>Dereliction of duty, I think, because he also removed the, the state attorney in Hillsborough County as well at that time.

We talked earlie about the death penalty, Nick, and I mentioned that Monique Worrell has been pretty outspoken o that and other criminal justice issues, including during her reelection campaign, I think.

I mean you talked with her last year.

Does she seem to be sticking to her sort of progressive prosecutor positions despite that pressure she's getting from the state?

She did and she frames it in a way.

Maybe it's a little bit more politically palatable.

She calls it smart justice instead of just going after everybody for the max, which is more paperwork, more time, more money.

Now that we've seen her in office, it's been interestin because she's been rather quiet.

She's held a couple of press conferences the last couple of weeks.

>>Since the reelection.

>>Since her reelection.

But, you know, back in her first term, they'd be putting out a press release every other day.

It seemed like now we'll g weeks without hearing from her.

And when we ask her office questions, we usually do get responses, but it's never from her directly.

>>Well, I guess we'll se how that pans out going forward.

Be sure to join us on social media.

Meanwhile, we're at WUCF TV on Facebook and Instagram.

You'll also find us on X @NewsNightWUCF.

Okay, finally tonight we wanted to look at some local developments in the immigration issue since we last tackle it here on the program.

Orange Count Commissioners earlier this month approved a new addendum to an agreement with the federal government allowing local offices to transport immigration detainees to ICE-approved facilities.

Two commissioners opposed the move.

>>Mayor Demings signed the addendum under pressure after receiving a letter from the state attorney general threatening commissioners with removal from office.

That letter argued Florid law requires local governments to use, quote, best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law and that by previously declining to agree to the addendum, Orange Count had adopted a sanctuary policy.

County officials and commissioners have raised concerns about the jail's capacity to support ICE operations.

Demings has accused the state of intimidation and warned of possible future legal challenges.

>>By signing the agreement, we avoided the immediate risk of having the governo appoint his minions to lead Orange County, and thereby we maintain the current duly elected Orange County Commission.

>>I'm not going to vote to ratify this.

And this is why I hea the situational awareness and I heard you say the word, yo know, sticking point and for me, my goodness the sticking point is, is that I am an American citizen.

I live in the United State of America and never in my life have I witnessed that you can vote yes, you can vote no.

You can vote abstain.

But if you don't vote the way I tell you to vote, I'm going to remove you from office.

>>Kelly Semrad at that Orange County Commission meeting.

Massiel you covered that meeting where they ratified that addendum.

There were fairly passionate positions as we as we've heard that.

Does it seem like commissioners were voting reluctantly here?

>>When in a way it was a very, as you mentioned, a high stakes meeting in a very passionate discussion among all the commissioners.

Also, the mayor said that they were at risk of being removed from office, and that was kind of the fear that was looming over that discussion.

And that's why, it took a whil for them to vote, especially after hearin a lot of public comment as well.

In this we saw that Commissioner Wilson and Martinez Semrad voted against it, and it got very emotional at times because they wanted to make sure that they were doing the right thing, as they mentioned, but also in that fear of being removed from office, what have we here then, in terms of the public comments?

Because these sessions that I've watched before seem to be pretty one sided in terms of who showing up to make their opinions heard.

>>This case, when we saw over 60 people, were speaking during publi comment, it took over an hour.

>>That's a lot-- >>So a lot of people, during public comment, they wore shirts saying, asking the commissioners to stand with them so they would stand with the commission and, you know, prevent their removal.

But basically a lot of stories, emotional stories we heard from one person who said that they had a family member who had been detained by ICE and taken to Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades.

So it was quite emotional but most of them seemed to want the commissioners to abstain from signing this addendum agreement.

But finally they voted 5 to 2.

>>They have gone through with that.

WFTV has covered the story pretty extensively as well.

Has Mayor Demings given an indication of what might happen going forward no that the amendment to the 287G agreement has been ratified?

>>I mean he said that they'll transport if they have the staff but he's also indicated that they are very short on staf over at the jail.

I don't remembe the exact number of positions that are open but it is a significant number.

And so his way of maybe getting around this issue is saying, yes, we signed the agreement, but since we don't have the staff, we're not going to be able to transport anybody.

>>And he has said tha this hasn't happened yet.

>>Yes.

I was going to add that, he said that as of right now we had never had that request.

And when it comes to even the request coming in, we can sa if we don't have enough people because we're 25% short on staff at the jail level, we can say, no, we can deny that request if it comes to it.

But it hasn't happened just yet.

And he says he doubts that it would happen.

We'll see.

>>Yeah.

Good point.

What what are you hearing over at News 6.

I mean, could there be a legal challenge here do we reckon?

>>The county has indicated there is one.

I don't know how much of that is just trying to maybe calm the waters a little bit.

You know, you mentioned the people that were there and a lot of resident were very vocal and very upset about the county doing thi and seemed to acquiesce to the threat from the governo and the attorney general.

So, you know, tossing litigation out ther may quiet that out a little bit.

I don't know that they've got a whole lot to litigate here, because there is some litigation working its way through.

Orange County doesn't quite fit into that same box that we're seeing out of South Florida.

So I think it's just one of those things where, let's say it and hope maybe this quiets it down.

>>I mean this is kind of where politics and the law collide, right?

Because, you know, the state, the state is, is citing its, sanctuary city law.

I mean, does that see to give the state pretty broad authority to force compliance from local government?

>>Boy, this is a huge stole base on the part of the state.

What you do is you say this.

Listen, you don't have to sign the agreement, but if you don't, you're going to become a sanctuary city, which is illegal.

So it's like if, you know, you don't have to do this, but if you don't, this will happen.

And then once that happens now we can come in and it's just again, it's coercion from the state to get counties and cities to do what Tallahassee wants.

And again, it's we get an election every two years.

We send 160 of these people up to Tallahassee.

We get a voice in this as well.

But this is what Tallahassee wants.

This is what our state government wants.

It's in the law.

And the counties now need to comply.

>>I want to talk about, those being held on behalf of ICE in the Orange County Jail in a moment.

But first, listen to this from the Orange County Corrections Chief, Luis Quinonez.

>>Initially an individual that was held for ICE was not on our website.

We heard the public, we went to the county's attorney's office, spoke with them.

Then we made that change.

So now any person that is being held for ICE, their information is now on the website.

And any loved one could go ahead and see that.

Luis Quinonez there.

Nick the chief there saying that, there is more transparency now, on behalf of the jail about who is being held, on behalf of ICE, you've done some reportin on these immigration detainees.

What have you been finding?

>>What we found is that the vast majority of them do have some sort of local criminal charge.

So it could be somethin as small as, you know, running through a stop sign or a red light or something like that.

That might be more on the traffic side, but could also be, you know, some sort of, domestic violence or another crime that a lot of people will get caught up in.

What we are seeing, though, in the last month or two, is this growin number of arrests that are made that don't have that local charge.

Nothing was done.

I don't necessarily know why this is trending upward.

Police are looking more for it.

If there's getting some direction or if, certain agency is bringing in, is making more of these arrests.

But in the month of July the last month that we have data for the number of those doubled, so from 30 something to 7 something on an average per day.

And these people are only held at the Orange County Jail for about 24 hours or so before they moved on.

So we know that these arrests are happening at a very fast rate.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the month of August, if that was just a blip, or if this becomes more of a trend where it starts to overtake those local charged people.

>>Yeah.

This fight over ICE collaboration is far from the only conflict at the moment between local governments and the state right now.

You've been covering this DOGE audit story, which is another point of tension, I guess, between Orange County and other local governments in the state that's underway currently.

How are local leader handling that ongoing process?

You've been covering that?

>>Well, we first caught u with the mayor, Jerry Demings, at an actual, groundbreaking in the park.

And he called it, means spirit, politics.

He said it was overly politicized.

Everything we do, it's politicized.

So, you know, it kind of come from like, the state trying to to see how they ca get themselves into the county.

But some of the commissioners said we had nothing to hide.

The books are open.

We just got everything together really quickly for them to come and take a look.

And we have nothing to hide.

We have the programs here and they will see that where we invest the most in is public safety in the county, so they can come and take a look, you know.

>>News 6 has been covering this a lot as well.

What are you guys hearing?

>>Well, our anchor, Matt Austin interviewed Blaise Ingoglia the day before DOGE showed up in Orange County.

Actually, the day before, hours before, I should say, the letter got sent to Orange County.

And some of the questions he put to him were rather telling, you know, he asked about, you know, how are you choosing some of these and, you know, asking about the fact that they do tend to be all Democratic cities and Democratic counties.

The one Republican county that got targeted is one where the commission largely was elected and they all ran, no with the DeSantis endorsement.

So, yeah, kind of put an asterisk on that one.

But we asked about this.

And his answer on this was fascinating.

And it's up on our website.

But we asked about are you goin to audit, maybe Visit Florida.

You remember Visit Florida.

They paid $1 million to Pitbul for a music video entitled Sexy Beaches and Hotels.

That's our money.

Are you going to potentially audit them?

And the answer was, well, you know, we only have so many resources and this, that and the other.

So clearly DOGE is checking you know, which where it wants to go and picking out where it wants to be.

We'll wait and see what these look like.

The other issue is what comes of enforcement.

Are these just roadmaps for the legislature to perhaps pass new laws to crack down on cities and counties?

Maybe my sense of this is it's all building towards this crescendo of eliminating property tax.

And that's 2 or 3 steps down the line.

This is just kind of the precursor.

>>And we're getting that indication just to jump in real quick, and that some of the statements that are being made and what they're asking for is this.

Let's find evidence and find reasons to be able to say the voters.

This is why we need that property tax eliminated.

Because remember, that's if the state is going to do that, it's going to have to go to a referendum.

>>Yes, that's right.

>>In front of the voters, where, you know, every single county and cit is going to sit there and say, we need our fire department we need our police department, we need our 911.

And the state, it looks like, is trying to find the reasons to say, well, actually, you can fund that fire department because here's all this money that we've uncovered.

Orange County, objectively is one of the more transparent governments that we have.

Is there waste in the government somewhere?

Absolutely.

I mean, it just that's what come with such a large organization.

You can find ways to save money.

But it is one of the governments that gets covered the most in Central Florida.

>>No doubt.

We tend to be very well sourced in that government.

And so other governments, other counties and cities, get a lot less of the spotlight and attention.

And so those are the area that are still not being looked at compared to Orange, which is getting audited.

>>That's a good point.

And it's also worth mentioning that property tax is liable to be an issue going forward, especiall in the next legislative session.

Moving into next year ahead of the election.

There were some legal developments this week on Alligator Alcatraz as well.

We'll talk more about that on next week's program.

In the meantime, you can find a link to the state statute on cooperation with federal immigration authorities on our website is wucf.org/newsnight.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Christopher Heath Nick Papantonis, Massiel Leyva.

Thank you so much for coming in guys.

Really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.