Good.

We agree with Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Jonathan Martin, a Fort Myers Republican who is sponsoring the bill (SB 1342), who said sexual battery on a child is not a crime that happens accidentally.

Anyone who could rape a child is depraved and they don’t belong in society. We agree that the death penalty is appropriate in those cases.

It looks like the bill has some bipartisan support at this stage as well. Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat from Hollywood, Florida, suggested the committee look at some potential changes to the bill to help it withstand legal challenges.

“These are not crimes that you can ever be rehabilitated from,” Pizzo said. “No one has ever convinced me that you can be rehabilitated.”

A similar bill is making its way through the House.

One concern with the bills is that the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court have long barred death sentences for people who rape children, including a 2008 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana case. However, Martin believes that could soon change with the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We’re going to kill you if you touch our little kids,” Martin said. “I’m OK with that.”

So are we.

While we support this bill and want to see it move forward, we’re a little more hesitant on a somewhat related bill that lawmakers are also currently discussing, one that would eliminate the requirement of unanimous jury recommendations before judges can impose death sentences in murder cases.

If that bill goes forward and is signed into law, it will allow death sentences to be imposed based on the recommendations of eight of 12 jurors.

The issue of revamping death-penalty laws emerged after Nikolas Cruz last year received a life sentence for the murders of 17 students and faculty members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. The life sentence came after a Broward County jury did not unanimously recommend death.

Since 1973, 190 former death-row prisoners have been exonerated of all charges related to the wrongful convictions that put them there. According to a 2014 study that looked at three decades worth of data, 4.1% of people currently on death row may be innocent.

People make mistakes and sometimes innocent people get convicted. Knowing that, loosening the restrictions on who can be sentenced to death does seem a little scary.

It’s not hard to find examples of innocent people who have been executed for crimes they didn’t commit.

In 1989, Carlos DeLuna was executed for a homicide he didn’t commit. Cameron Willingham was put to death in 2004 for arson and triple homicide for a fire that was later proved to be accidental.

We were dismayed that Cruz did not receive the death penalty like many others, but we don’t believe the current law needs to be changed when it could result in more innocent people being executed for crimes they didn’t commit.

Last week, we received a press release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on a long-term investigation they conducted that led to the arrest of Steinhatchee, Florida, man on multiple poaching charges.

While reading to see if there was any local connection to the arrest that would warrant us running it, we didn’t find one, but we did become more and more disappointed with the FWC’s Division of Law Enforcement’s investigation the more we read.

First thing, let’s be clear that it is a good thing that FWC got this alleged poacher off the streets and away from Florida’s wildlife. For that they should be commended.

However, there are things about the way the FWC law enforcement went about this investigation, at least the way they presented it in their own press release, that are pretty upsetting.

So here are the basics: On Feb. 28, FWC investigators arrested Sidney Brent Hurst, 37, of Steinhatchee, on charges of taking over the season bag limit for turkeys, taking over the season bag limit for deer, scheming to defraud, armed trespass, unlawful use of a two-way communication device and cheating. The charges range from second degree misdemeanors to third degree felonies.

The investigation began in spring 2020 in response to tips from the public, which led investigators to social media posts Hurst allegedly made.

During that first year of the investigation, FWC officers found evidence that Hurst and his young son had both killed more wild turkeys than the two per person bag limit allowed. In fact, FWC put in the press release they had evidence that Hurst by himself had killed 15 to 20 wild turkeys during the spring 2020 season.

To us, that seems like enough to arrest a fella on.

FWC decided they needed more evidence, so they continued the investigation into 2021 and widened it beyond just wild turkeys.

In 2021, they compiled evidence that Hurst continued to poach wild turkeys, both hunting beyond the legal bag limits in season and continuing to hunt outside of the legal hunting season, but that he also likely killed 20 buck deer, well above five per person bag limit.

Despite that extra investigation, no arrest was made in 2021 and FWC allowed the investigation to continue into 2022, when they believe Hurst killed at least another 15 wild turkeys.

So, if our math is correct, FWC, the state agency mandated to protect Florida’s wildlife, allowed at least 35 or more wild turkeys and 20 deer to be killed in 2021 and 2022 when they already had evidence that this person was poaching. They should be ashamed for allowing that to happen.

This is how FWC Deputy Director of North Operations Lt. Col. Gregg Eason explained FWC’s reaction to Hurst’s action over a more than two-year period:

“Over the course of the investigation, we were shocked by the egregious nature of both Hurst’s illegal exploits and his social media posts. He bragged about the number of wild turkeys he poached, often trespassing to do so, and his ability to elude law enforcement.”

Here’s our quote:
“Over the course of reading FWC’s Division of Law Enforcement press release, we were shocked by their egregious investigation and their willingness to knowingly let this suspected animal remain free and illegally hunt Florida’s wildlife for more than a year after they had evidence of his illegal poaching habits. If we were a wild turkey or deer at that point, we’d be asking FWC ‘What the heck, guys?’”

But this 19-year-old returned to the scene and killed more people.

It could happen to any journalist. It could happen at any time. We go to the scene of shootings, road rage incidents, wrecks, fires. Those are all considered dangerous places.

We are privileged to live in a small but big place in Northwest Florida where we don’t have daily shootings and too many murders to count. We live in a county where our sheriff is tough on criminals and firmly believes in our right to defend ourselves. He even offered shooting classes.

In the aftermath of that shooting, and every other shooting, there is a call for stricter gun control laws. The problem with that is, it only applies to people who are trying to legally purchase a weapon. Those are not the ones out there shooting people.

The criminals and gang members are the majority of people shooting and killing others. And they do not obtain their guns legally. We already have a law that makes it illegal for felons to own a weapon. Does that stop them? No, because they are buying guns on the street.

Does it prohibit or make it harder for your everyday American to own a weapon? Yes. Those weapons are used for self-protection and the protection of others, not to shoot and kill people at will.

There are some things that you can’t legislate your way out of. Guns are one of those things. It is illegal to possess illicit drugs. Does it stop the addicts from using drugs? Does it stop the sellers from selling drugs? No. They are criminals who care nothing about the laws in this country. If you legislate to ban guns, only the bad guys will have them and we, the lawful gun owners, will then have nothing to protect ourselves. And the bad guys win.

We are deeply saddened by the killings last week and we will continue to pray for those families. Bad things happen. Bad things will continue to happen. We can’t stop it. We can’t make enough laws to stop bad guys because in the end, a law is written on a piece of paper and the police can only enforce it once it has been broken. That is the American way. It is living in a free society. People have the option of making very bad decisions. We can’t legislate every problem away. We cannot know what is in someone’s mind before something bad happens.

What we can do is pray for the families left behind. We can honor those who lost their lives. We can refrain from mentioning the name of the person who pulled the trigger – he doesn’t deserve to be famous for what he did.

We can do some extra parenting. We can give pre-teens and teens the tools to cope with stress and chaos. We don’t know the background of the teen who did this. We wouldn’t venture to guess what led up to it.

But we do know that more laws and stricter gun control would not have prevented this from occurring. Where there is a will for evil, there is a way for evil. Where there is a will for good, there is a way for good.