Statement on the Execution of Michael Tanzi from Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty*

On April 8th, the state of Florida executed Michael Tanzi. Floridian for Alternatives to the Death Penalty* (released the following statement in response to the execution:

Tonight, we the people of the State of Florida executed Michael Tanzi. The State wants you to believe we did so in the name of “justice.” To anyone who is paying attention, the death penalty is not justice. It is not justice to take a physically and mentally broken man, strap him to a gurney, and commit premeditated murder. This is revenge, plain and simple. 

Michael was abused by the people who were supposed to protect him. His father resented the fact that Michael was born and lashed out at Michael and his mother, putting Michael in the hospital starting at the age of 2. His parents would only say that he and his father had been “rough housing.”

Michael was 6 when he was first sexually abused. As most child sexual abuse victims do, Michael began acting out. Because of her own difficulties, instead of getting Michael the help he desperately needed, his mother turned him in to the police in an effort to “scare” him straight. She also forced him to put his hands on a hot stove.

His father offered even harsher punishment – on one occasion he mercilessly beat him for disappearing outside for 45 minutes. His jury never heard that the reason 8-year-old Michael “disappeared” was because his teenage abuser was raping him in the woods. The State would later grossly mischaracterize this as a “relationship,” claiming that Michael “started to become sexually involved with [an] older boy.” 8-year-olds cannot consent to sex. And forcible rape is not a relationship. 

Also when Michael was 8, his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Instead of receiving the paternal support that would prepare him for such a loss, Michael instead received even more severe abuse. In his final days, his father told Michael, “You’re the one who is killing me.” With his father now dead, his mother unable to cope, 8-year-old Michael would continue to be raped for the next 5 years. 

Without any treatment or intervention, in November 1997, 20-year-old Michael attempted suicide and was hospitalized. As often happens in state hospitals, he was spit back out onto the streets immediately without any follow up care. 

Three years later, Michael was arrested for the murder of Janet Acosta. There is no doubt that Michael’s crime was brutal. Michael acknowledges this: “When I look back on my life my regrets are endless. I’ve taken full responsibility for my actions . . . prison saved my life.” 

If only there had been help and treatment for the 2-year-old, the 6-year-old, the 8-year-old, or the 20-year-old. If only the people and agencies who were supposed to protect him could have saved his life instead of prison. They could have saved Janet Acosta’s life too.

Part of the irony here is that Janet Acosta’s longtime partner John Mulcahy, who died in 2015, expressed early on that he and Acosta were against the death penalty. It was mentioned in the sentencing order condemning Michael to death. “I really loved this woman,” Mulcahy said in 2003. “But I don’t want to see the guy die. Both of us didn’t think it did any good killing people off.”

The problem is that the State of Florida is selling a false bill of goods when it tells murder victims’ family members that the death penalty is the best and only way to achieve justice. Janet’s sister, Julie Andrew, explained after Michael’s sentencing in 2003: “Our whole reason for being here wasn’t for revenge . . . . We wanted to see justice done for my sister. And we wanted to make sure no one else had to go through what we went through.” But justice would have been achieved with a life without parole sentence 25 years ago. 

Ms. Andrew told the Boston Herald in 2007 that the long process leading up to his eventual execution was a tough and constant reminder of the murder. “Your life kind of goes on and you put it in the back of your mind, but then you get the call from the State Attorney’s Office, and it’s like a sledgehammer hits your chest.”

As we always do, we grieve alongside the family of the victim. We condemn the brutality of Michael’s actions unequivocally. We too want to see justice done for all. 

Failing to protect abused children and failing to answer a suicidal cry for help is not justice. A sledgehammer to the chest is not justice.

*FADP is a Florida-based, state-wide organization of individuals and groups working together to end the death penalty in Florida. Our network includes dozens of state and local groups and thousands of individual Floridians, including murder victims’ family members and other survivors of violent crime, law enforcement professionals, families of the incarcerated, and death row exonerees.

Read the full original release here.