Joaquín José Martínez takes the long view when it comes to abolishing the death penalty: “One step at a time.”
Convicted of murder in 1997 and sentenced to death, Martínez — a Catholic — was exonerated in 2001. Since then he has spent years advocating against the death penalty in Florida and elsewhere.
At a press conference on Nov. 12, Martínez urged Florida’s Gov.-elect Byron Donalds to halt executions in the state, something Catholics and other advocates have been calling on the government to do for years.
The advocate said the sociopolitical landscape around capital punishment has changed radically over the years, particularly in schools, where Martínez himself regularly speaks to students about abolishing the death penalty.
“We didn’t have anyone come out [when I was a child] to teach us and speak to us about how horrible the death penalty was,” he said. “To see this change now, I’m overwhelmed by it.”
Florida is among the most active states in putting prisoners to death. Data from the Death Penalty Information Center show 23 executions there over the last year alone.
Catholic bishops in the state have been active in speaking out against executions, urging the government to halt death sentences in part by regularly pointing to the humanity of the condemned.
In 2025, for instance, the bishops called for the commutation of one death sentence by arguing that the governor should “recognize with awe that God is the author of life, and to reserve to him the taking of human life except where it is otherwise impossible to maintain the common good.”
In the press conference, Martínez — who was joined by his fellow exonerees Herman Lindsey and Seth Penalver — acknowledged that it is “difficult” for people to “accept that the death penalty is not perfect.”
“It has faults,” he said. But “I’m one more reason why we should abolish the death penalty.”
A native of Spain, Martínez told EWTN News that he loves his adopted home of the United States. “And I would really love to see the United States put an end to the death penalty,” he said.
“I think we’re an example to the rest of the world. The rest of the world looks to the U.S. for what they do.”
At the press conference he compared executions in the U.S. to those carried out in ancient Rome’s Colosseum.
“I mean, how barbaric!” he said at the conference. He argued that the U.S. and Florida are “not barbaric,” but he argued of the country: “It just needs to evolve. It just needs to grow.”
He told EWTN News, meanwhile, that anti-death penalty advocacy is much more united and focused than it was years ago when he himself was on death row.
“When I was sentenced to death, we didn’t have so many organizations working together against the death penalty,” he said. The media, too, now offers much fairer coverage of that advocacy than it used to, he said.
He also pointed to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent historic exoneration of every prisoner on that state’s death row.
“It’s going to take a long time to change,” he said. “But we do see change. It’s good.”
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