Anti-Death Penalty Prosecutor’s Case Doesn’t Add Up: Rick Scott, Pam Bondi

ORLANDO, FL — Orange-Osceola County State Attorney Aramis Ayala won’t get her first-degree murder cases back if Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi get their way. Scott and Bondi fired back a joint response Wednesday to Ayala’s request that the Florida Supreme Court declare Scott’s executive orders removing those cases from her office unconstitutional.

Scott and Bondi’s joint response contends that Ayala is asking the court to deem unconstitutional a move that she herself requested six times this year. The filing claims Ayala, “one of Florida’s newly elected state attorneys asked the State’s chief administration and executive officer to reassign cases from her office to a different state attorney.”

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In four of the six requests, the response contends Ayala “asked for the case to be handed over to Brad King, her neighboring state attorney in the Fifth Judicial Circuit.” King, Lake County’s state attorney, is also named in Ayala’s suit since he is the prosecutor Scott handed her first-degree murder cases over to earlier this year after a dispute about the death penalty erupted.

“Today, however, State Attorney Ayala asks this Court to rule that the statute expressly authorizing executive reassignments – including the six reassignments she herself requested – is unconstitutional,” the response says. “Ayala does not and cannot argue that the text of the Constitution carves out an exception when she herself approves an inter-circuit transfer.”

Scott and Bondi are asking the court to deny Ayala’s request to get her murder cases back.

Those cases were pulled by Scott after Ayala stated she would not seek the death penalty for accused cop killer Markeith Loyd. She also publicly stated her intent to not seek death in any first-degree murder cases during her term in office.

Ayala filed suit earlier this month, alleging that Scott “violated the Constitution of the United States, usurped Ayala’s authority, and deprived voters in the Ninth Judicial Circuit of their chosen State attorney when, under color of law, he removed Ayala from 23 pending homicide cases in her circuit and replaced her with King,” according to court documents.

Scott’s decision, the suit claims, was not based on “any misconduct on Ayala’s part, but simply because he disagreed with her reasoned prosecutorial determination not to seek the death penalty under current circumstances.”

Ayala contends her decision to not seek the death penalty in the high-profile case against Loyd, the accused killer of Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton, and others in the batch of 23 pulled cases is based on research related to the death penalty. The first-term state attorney’s suit says her research showed the death penalty has no positive impacts on public safety, is racially discriminatory, and is too costly, among other factors.

A request by Ayala for an emergency temporary reassignment back to her of the 23 cases was denied by the Florida Supreme Court earlier this week.

In addition to pointing out Ayala’s own use of reassignment, Bondi and Scott’s joint response also claims that Ayala’s decision to not seek the death penalty is a matter of personal belief rather than “the law of this State, appropriately applied on a case-by-case basis.” The response argues that Scott does have the authority to transfer cases when the “ends of justice would be served.”

In requesting the court turn down Ayala’s petition, the response says not doing so “will have vast, long-lasting, and likely unforeseeable implications for the administration of criminal justice in this State.”

It is unclear how soon the court may rule on Ayala’s case.

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