Florida prosecutors challenge SCOTUS precedent by seeking death penalty for child sexual abuse

Florida prosecutors, backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and bipartisan state lawmakers, are throwing down the gauntlet against the U.S. Supreme Court on one of the most emotionally fraught subjects in American politics.

They are seeking the death penalty for a man charged with sexual battery against a person younger than 12 under a law championed by DeSantis that took effect Oct. 1, expanding the grounds for capital punishment to sex crimes against children, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Lake County sheriff's deputies charged Joseph Andrew Giampa after he showed them a video of himself sexually abusing a child that clearly identified him as the perpetrator, according to the affidavit. 

The nation's highest court banned the death penalty for rape as cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the 8th Amendment in 1977 and reaffirmed the ruling in 2008 when a victim of child rape does not die.

Lawmakers approved the law anyway, with the bill text saying the rulings were "wrongly decided" and constitute "an egregious infringement of the states’ power to punish the most heinous of crimes." DeSantis has said he thinks the current composition of the Supreme Court would uphold the law if challenged.

Stephen Harper, founder of the Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University, urged the Supreme Court to stick with its current precedents. It will be not "legitimate" otherwise, he told the Times.