- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Coming up on Florida This Week, the state is preparing for a rare moment in its history: two executions scheduled for the same day.

It brings renewed attention to questions around justice appeals and the death penalty.

We'll look at the cases of two men who have spent decades fighting their convictions, and the legal questions that remain.

Also, a major case before the U.S.

Supreme Court could change how criminal trials are conducted in Florida and across the country.

At the center of the case, does the Constitution require 12 people on a jury?

How a decision by the highest court in the land could shake up thousands of criminal convictions in Florida.

Plus, our one-on-one interview with the hospital CEO, who is leading a massive construction project to erase the devastating effects of Hurricanes Helene and Milton two years ago.

Key pieces of infrastructure are being hardened against the next big storm.

Florida This Week starts now.

[music] Welcome back to Florida This Week, I'm your moderator Lissette Campos.

Joining us today is Dan Sullivan.

He covers justice for the Tampa Bay Times, where he spent seven years inside the region, state and federal courtrooms.

We also have Mitch Perry, senior reporter for the Florida Phoenix.

He's covered state current affairs for more than 20 years, and he is always an insightful voice on our panel.

And we have Justin Olson, the vice president and chief operating officer of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital.

He's overseeing the multi-million dollar Storm Resilience Project on the hospital in downtown St.

Pete.

He's also a state and federally trained executive in emergency response activation and in emergency preparedness.

Florida is scheduled to carry out two executions on the same day next week.

It is the first time that has happened in more than 60 years.

The cases involve two men convicted nearly 40 years ago.

They raised broader questions about punishment appeals, changing evidence and how the justice system decides when a case is truly finished.

For James Duckett and Dominic Occhicone, decades of appeals are coming to an end.

The final stages of these two cases raising very different questions.

Duckett was convicted in the 1987 killing of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in Lake County.

He's maintained his innocence for nearly 40 years.

His attorneys argue that evidence used to secure his conviction, including forensic hair analysis and witness testimony, deserves renewed scrutiny as standards of scientific evidence have evolved.

The state argues a conviction has been examined repeatedly through appeals, and the governor is standing by that review process.

- I still have a responsibility to look at these cases and to be sure that the person's guilty.

And if I honestly thought somebody wasn't, I would not pull the trigger on it.

- Occhicone's case presents a different set of questions.

He was convicted of killing Raymond and Martha Artzner in their holiday home in 1986.

Now 80 years old, Occhicone's attorneys argue that his age and serious medical conditions make his execution unconstitutional.

The courts have rejected those arguments.

His case also reflects changes in Florida's death penalty system.

His death sentence was recommended by a 7 to 5 jury vote.

Under current Florida law, at least eight jurors must recommend a death sentence before it can be imposed.

Together, the cases raise fundamental questions in criminal justice.

When a conviction is decades old, how does the system balance the need for an end with the possibility that new information could change what we know?

How should courts consider evidence that changes over time?

And after decades have passed, what does justice require?

Those questions are once again at the center of Florida's debate over the death penalty.

Dan, I'd like to start with you.

Critics on both sides, critics and supporters of the death penalty as a punishment are talking about, is justice delayed?

Is justice denied?

Should these cases they talk about fairness, evolving science, decade-long delays.

A lot of hard questions are being, you know, considered by both sides as Florida carries out another round of executions.

Where do you see these hard questions landing?

- Well, I think, um, you know, there's a lot of strong feelings on both sides of the issue with Duckett's case.

Obviously, there's the question of, you know, did they get the right guy?

And, you know, has he been given enough due process, um, you know, to prove that he's innocent as he says he is with Occhicone's case, there's the bigger questions of is it right to put this man to death when he is, you know, elderly and suffering from various medical conditions?

And, um, it's a difficult question that, you know, a lot of people have wrestled with.

At the same time, there is, you know, that question of when is enough enough?

And, you know, a jury.

Two juries, a long time ago, said that these men should die.

And, you know, is, you know, is it time to do that?

I think those are all legitimate questions.

- And these are stories that you've been following for a number of years.

Both of these death row inmates have been waiting for decades for finality in their cases.

What does it actually look like inside a case that's taking so long?

The decades-long?

- Well, I think with both of these cases, when you look at the case itself, you see that a lot of their appeals and a lot of the due process has already kind of been ironed out and resolved.

You know, years ago, um, Occhicone in particular, I think his appeals were pretty much exhausted by about 2006.

And, um, that's why you see now that his death warrant has been signed, his appeals now focus more on.

Is it ethical and moral to put him to death now that he's elderly and ill?

Whereas with Duckett, it's more of a question of, you know, did we really get the right person?

And, you know, have we really examined all the forensic evidence that might be there that can prove that this was the right person?

- Because Duckett is challenging the evidence that was presented in the case.

And then you have the governor saying this has been tried and convicted already.

And the governor went as far as to say, if he honestly believed that someone was innocent, that he would not proceed.

How does this get resolved before Tuesday?

- Well, um, with Mr.

Duckett's case, he does still have appeals pending, I believe at this moment he still has an appeal pending before the Florida Supreme Court.

He also has filed something in federal court challenging the sufficiency of the DNA testing that he was granted.

Um, you know, he was granted, um, some DNA testing earlier this year after the governor first signed his death warrant.

And while that testing was ongoing, the Florida Supreme Court issued him a stay of execution, and the testing later came back inconclusive.

And now there's some argument going on about, you know, was the right kind of testing done.

And is there more evidence that we can examine that might give us, you know, more of a conclusive answer?

- Mitch, when you wrote your story last week on this, you looked at the bigger picture.

What's been happening with death, uh, death penalty cases in Florida during the last 19 months.

Tell us what you've seen when you look at the big picture and what's revealed in this piece.

- Well, Governor Ron DeSantis is on a prolific rate of signing execution, death warrants in a pace that not only we haven't seen in Florida ever, but really almost unprecedented nationally in terms of how many this will be.

This these go off on Tuesday, there will be the 11th and 12th people executed this year, which is roughly, I believe, more than 50% of all executions that have happened in the United States this year.

Last year there were 19 executions.

That was 40%.

So we are doing as much as the rest of the country, half as much as the rest of the country right now.

And there hasn't been really a lot of focus on this about why the governor is doing this.

I mean, I mean, he's been in office for seven and a half years.

It's only in the last year and a half.

This pace has really picked up.

There are hundreds of people on death row.

So you know you know it's just interesting why he's really pushing this now and is the last part of his term in office.

- You've also covered the legislature, you know, moving to expand who's eligible for the death penalty in Florida, the pace that you've just talked about with Governor DeSantis.

What is driving all of this?

- Well, when it comes to okay, so let's look at what's happened in Florida.

Yeah, they did a couple years ago, pass legislation basically challenging something that's unconstitutional right now, which is to try to execute somebody who hasn't killed somebody, back in...I think it was 2008.

Justice Kennedy was the Kennedy, Louisiana case basically said, um, it can only be an execution for somebody who's I'm roughly saying, you know, has killed somebody else.

What I'm saying is that there's a law now that says child rapists are eligible for the death penalty.

And there's a couple cases that have actually now are, you know, going through the court system here.

I believe James Uthmeier, Attorney General, last fall, wrote to then U.S.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and said, you know, "Can we get the Trump administration to change the law on this?"

Ultimately, this would, if in fact, we pursue this, it will probably go to the U.S.

Supreme Court, have to go to the Supreme Court because they're the ones who put the precedent down that says, you really can't expand beyond what we do right now, the death penalty.

- I think viewers will be surprised to know that in your story, last week, you wrote about the man that was executed last week.

He wanted Governor DeSantis to be there when it happened.

- That's right.

Dennis Stoker, who was executed a week and a half ago.

He basically his spiritual adviser, told the press that, um, that he wanted the governor to see an execution in person.

The fact that he's doing so, writing so many of these death warrants in the you know, as you say, the comfort of his office in Tallahassee and hasn't actually seen the stark reality of what happens when somebody dies by the state.

It's a it's a huge responsibility.

It's a huge thing whether you support the death penalty or you don't.

Right now, 20...I believe it's.

23 states do not do the death penalty, but actually it's.

27 because four states which have a moratorium on right now.

So the majority of states in the country don't do this right now.

The most recent Gallup poll had this, I believe 53% do still support the death penalty in the United States, but that's the lowest it's been since the 90s, actually.

So, you know, it's kind of against the pace of what the rest of the country is doing right now.

- Okay.

And turning to another story that could shake up our state's justice system in a very big way, a case before the U.S.

Supreme Court, it could reshape how criminal trials are conducted in Florida and several other states.

At issue is a question that sounds simple, but it does carry significant constitutional implications.

How many people does it take to make a jury?

For more than 50 years, Florida has allowed six-person juries in most criminal cases, and now the U.S.

Supreme Court is being asked to reconsider whether the Constitution requires 12 people to serve on a jury in federal criminal cases.

The case comes from Florida and involves Hamid Kian, a chiropractor convicted by a six-member jury of practicing with a suspended license.

Kian argues that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial carries a historical requirement for 12 jurors.

Florida argues the constitution does not specify a number, and that six-person juries have been part of the state's criminal justice system for decades.

The question before the court traces back to a 1970 decision.

That's when justices ruled that the Constitution did not require states to use 12 person juries.

More than 50 years later, the court is being asked to revisit that precedent.

At the center of the debate is whether the size of a jury affects the reliability of a verdict.

Supporters of 12-person juries argue that a larger group provides more perspectives during deliberations and better reflects the community.

Those defending six-person juries point to decades of precedent, and the practical realities of longer trials increase costs, and the burden placed on citizens called for jury service.

For Florida, the decision could have consequences beyond future trials.

The state has warned that if the Supreme Court requires 12 person juries, thousands of past convictions could face legal challenges.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the fall.

And, Dan, if Florida is one of a handful of states that that uses six-person juries for serious felonies, Um, what is the Supreme Court specifically being asked to do in this case?

- The Supreme Court is basically being asked to strike down Florida's law allowing six-person juries as unconstitutional since most other states.

Um, you know, it's, it's the standard that you use 12 people.

Um, and there is at least one Supreme Court justice who has expressed an openness to striking this down because he believes it is unfair and unconstitutional.

- Mitch, when you look at if this ruling reopens, thousands of convictions, um, how is Tallahassee preparing for this possibility?

- I don't think they are right now.

I think it would be a logistical nightmare.

Um, but, you know, we'll see.

I mean, we're an outlier on this.

You know, I don't know why.

You know, the philosophy is 6 is better than 12 because everybody else does this.

You know, it also goes back to going back to the death penalty for a moment.

You know, we've gone back and forth in the last decade on how many jurors actually are eligible or can constitute a death penalty sentence.

And for right now, I believe only Florida and Alabama are the only states that require a non-unanimous jury selection.

It's eight jurors right now.

Yeah.

And that was changed after the reaction to the Nikolas Cruz case in the 2017 Parkland incident, where nine people voted to execute him, basically.

But it wasn't at that time we had to have a unanimous jury verdict.

So the legislature responded back to that.

And now it's eight.

As you said.

- In reading the case that's coming before the Supreme Court.

It doesn't look like it's splitting along the usual party lines.

You've got Justice Gorsuch.

He's the one that's been the loudest one, urging the court to take this up.

What does that what should that tell us?

- I think, uh, you know, as we've seen with the current makeup of the court, this is a court that has Uh, shown it's willing to overturn long standing precedent.

Um, at least in some situations.

Um, one thing that I think is unique in this, uh, in this dispute is that the issue of six-person juries actually goes back to the post-Civil War era.

And legal historians have pointed out that this is something that was part of racist laws that were passed in the aftermath of the Civil War.

- Started using the six-person jury in the reconstruction period.

- And it was basically it was part of efforts to limit the participation of African Americans in public life.

And, you know, um, for, you know, many, many years before that, it was always, you know, 12 people on juries.

And so that's kind of what some of the argument is, is that, you know, this is unconstitutional.

You know, because of that.

- It's interesting that this is such a huge case Consequential, um, to the entire country.

And yet it's again, it's a Florida case.

Florida seems to be at the center of this all again.

- Yeah.

- I agree.

- All right.

Well, turning to local courts, Hillsborough voters will choose two new judges next month.

These races sit near the bottom of the ballot.

They're nonpartizan, rarely covered and often left blank by the voters.

But the judges elected will decide cases that affect people's lives for years.

Dan has written the guide to who's running.

Dan, tell us about Group 7 and Group 13.

- Well, Group 7 is Sarah Peacock and Luis Aguilar.

They're both, um, you know, experienced attorneys.

Luis Aguilar is a prosecutor, career prosecutor who worked in the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office and now works for the Florida Attorney General's office.

Sarah Peacock is an insurance attorney.

She's also the daughter of Judge Emily Peacock.

And Mike Peacock, who's a very well known defense lawyer.

Group 13 is Nina McGuckin Alvarez and Jim Wimsatt, both, uh, people who practice in kind of the family realm and, um, also both very well regarded attorneys.

- And the other, the other local race that we are looking at.

And this one is getting plenty of attention.

The St.

Petersburg race for mayor, incumbent Ken Welsh is seeking a second term.

He faces City Council member Brandi Gabbard, former governor Charlie Crist, former fire chief Jim Large, former NAACP President Maria Scruggs, and the Civic Association leader Kevin Batdorf.

If no one clears 50% of the vote, the top two candidates will meet again in November.

Mitch Perry has been following this race.

Mitch, how do you see this?

- Well, Ken Welch is fighting for his political life right now.

Uh, I, you know, maybe he would have it would have been easier for Ken Welch if Charlie Crist hadn't gotten the race.

His you know, the fact that he's a former governor, he brings a certain celebrity factor to it.

Just a lot of experience.

Also, you know, some people are, have been having enough of Charlie Crist.

But look, he's really going hard.

Charlie Crist has raised a lot of money.

He's got ads running on social media and on television in St.

Petersburg every day.

And the question is, will those two be the men that Welch and Crist, you know, move on to November?

Well, Charlie Crist get 50%.

I think there's some people who think that might actually happen on August 18th.

I don't know about that, but I think that it's really made it harder for some of those other candidates because Chris is like this, you know, this major element that does kind of interfere with Ken Welch trying to go on for four more years.

- And it's something that we will certainly continue to follow.

And with the primary election season here in Florida This Week, wants to remind you of some important dates.

Get a pen.

If you want a ballot by mail, you have until August 6th to request one.

Early voting will run August the 8th through the 16th in most counties.

Be sure to check with your Supervisor of Elections office.

They've got the specific dates on their websites and Election Day is Tuesday, August the 18th.

The National Hurricane Center's tracking of Bertha in the Gulf is a reminder that we are still very much in hurricane season.

It's never too late to assess your family's hurricane plan, to think about where you'd ride out a storm, to secure your insurance documents and other important paperwork in the event of an evacuation or to storm harden your home.

Don't forget that WEDU is a valuable resource to you.

Our PBS station is a member of the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network, providing important public safety information before, during, and immediately after a storm.

Business leaders do not have the luxury of waiting until there's another storm on the horizon to start hardening, hardening their sites to hurricane impacts in St.

Petersburg, the campus of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital is in the middle of a $33.7 million storm resilience project that's expected to take the next three, possibly five years, to fully complete.

The person leading that effort is Justin Olson, the hospital's vice president and chief operating officer, and he joins us now to tell us about that important work.

First of all, thank you for coming in and welcome.

- Thanks for having me.

- The hospital suffered $1.5 million in damages from the hurricanes, primarily Hurricane Milton, two years ago.

What would you say were the hardest hit areas of your infrastructure that you're working on now?

- Yeah, we had a lot of water damage.

Water came through places we never expected water to come through.

And it wasn't seawater.

It was wind driven rain.

And so we had flooding on multiple levels coming through multiple windows.

So we had to repair all of the flooring and then also our roofing, as well as really reseal all of the windows to ensure that we don't have that happen again.

- During the hurricanes, you had approximately 200 children and their family members stay in the hospital.

Also had the staff members who were there.

Moving them out is not really an option.

Um, so how did things like the sewer, the water, the electric hold up?

- Yeah.

Well they did not.

Um, and you're right.

We are, we have, we are full of critically ill children.

There's really nowhere else they could go.

And so of course families are part of that, and we want them to be there.

Um, during really Helene, we lost um very little, but in the Milton, we lost water, city water went out, we lost sewer at points, we lost electricity.

And the way that we were able to survive that is we've actually thought through this for many years and have redundancies built into place.

We can generate our own power.

We have wells that go into the ground to pump our own water.

So because of that pre-planning and learning from every storm, we're able to continue our care even when conditions get really terribly hairy outside, which is what happened.

- And that's when your federal and state training comes in.

And it's part of your background as well as in emergency response.

- Absolutely.

So as a health care organization, we spend a lot of time on emergency management and programming and planning for what that would look like.

Hurricanes are one example.

Obviously, you can think of many other examples where we prepare for that.

So I've had the opportunity to lead hospitals for the last 20 years.

And through that, we always are working to make sure we're ready for whatever may come towards us.

With respect to.

- The list of storm hardening items is very long.

You've got quite a responsibility.

You've got the roof, um, digging separate water wells for fire protection, um, strengthening the exterior doors to the helipad, the ER, the main entrance, um installing transformers at the energy plant.

I mean the list just goes on and on.

$5 million in septic tanks, $12 million relocating the steam line.

And that's something that I'd like to ask you about.

Steam line sounds like something that is not code critical.

And yet it is.

Tell us what happened and how you're you're addressing that.

- It is absolutely essential to the operation of a hospital.

Without steam, we would have to close down.

Steam provides sterilization for equipment so that we can make sure we have the right conditions to do surgery, but it also regulates the temperature in the building so that we have the heat can counteracts the cooling.

So it's actually a reasonable temperature.

And then lastly, it's hot water.

Without steam we wouldn't have hot water.

So essentially it would require an evacuation if we didn't have steam.

Oh my gosh, we lost the steam line.

It was actually punctured by an outside sign that fell and went through the soil and pierced it.

But we had already recognized it as a weakness in previous storms because it runs underground and it's getting wet and the steam pipe is creating, it's eroding.

So we immediately really realized we had to move it to be more proximate to the hospital.

So it is a $12 million project, and it will go live at the end of this coming August and another month, we hope to go live with it, producing steam on site contiguous to the hospital, so we don't have to worry about that risk in future storms and other emergencies.

- And just moments ago, you were telling me about, um, securing the flow of blood to the hospital in key areas.

Um, tell us about the change that's being done so that you can make sure that's secure.

- Sure.

As we assess really our operation, our blood bank where we produce blood for transfusion to patients, was in a building that's connected to the hospital but is not in the hospital proper because they have to cross bridges in order to get the blood to our hospital.

In a really extreme storm event, we would not be able to get that blood over, would have to stop transportation.

And we just decided that was too much of a risk.

So we have relocated our blood bank or will open here in a few months into the core of the hospital, just again, to eliminate any risk in the future.

- Well, thank you so much for coming in and sharing all of this wonderful work with our viewers on Florida This Week.

- No, my pleasure.

I'm happy to be here.

Thank you so much for your time.

- And thanks again to our guests.

Today we have Justin Olson, Dan Sullivan, and Mitch Perry.

That's all the time that we have for now.

We know you have plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

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