The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. March 21, 2017 FL: State Attorney Threatened with Lynching After Refusing to Seek Death Penalty in Cop Murder Case --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Florida, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala has received death threats from another government employee after she announced she would not seek the death penalty in any murder cases, including in a case of a police officer's killing. After her announcement, the assistant finance director of the Seminole County Clerk's Office, Stan Mc Cullars, wrote on Facebook, "Maybe she should get the death penalty. … She should be tarred and feathered if not hung from a tree." Ayala is the first African-American state's attorney in Florida's history. The Orlando Sentinel reports that from 1877 to 1950, more than 331 black people were lynched by whites in Florida-the most lynchings per capita of any U.S. state. .