Attorney General James Uthmeier, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and law enforcement from Hillsborough County and St. Petersburg convened Monday at the FDLE Tampa office to announce predator arrests and convictions.
Uthmeier used the occasion to again argue that child predators should be eligible for the death penalty – a position that directly challenges existing constitutional precedent.
During the press conference, Uthmeier listed a series of recent arrests, but emphasized the most egregious child predation and abuse case involving Nathan Douglas Holmberg, who was arrested last November.
Holmberg, 36, is facing 70 felony counts as of Feb. – including seven counts (so far) of capital sexual battery of a child under 12 – after being indicted by a Hernando County grand jury. He is also facing 10 life sentences, and as evidence is still being collected, the counts may continue to increase.
Holmberg resided in St. Pete and Largo between 2018 and 2024, spreading the case across multiple jurisdictions in addition to Hernando County. Charges filed against Holmberg in Pinellas include 39 counts of Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance, 7 counts of Lewd or Lascivious Molestation on a Child Under 12 and 1 count of Video Voyeurism.
“We want to levy the ultimate form of punishment when it comes to this most heinous offense,” said Uthmeier. “We’ll pray for him, treat him, help him, but they will never realize a normal life.”
Uthmeier’s insistence on the death penalty for Holmberg and others like him touches a recurring moral and legal conundrum: crimes against children violate the population’s most basic protective instincts so deeply that they often fall into a delicate, liminal space between public outrage and the constitution’s restrained principles of punishment – eclipsing the vitriol that follows even the most vile murders.
It is in that liminal space where Uthmeier positions his reasoning. But an oft-repeated counterpoint argues that the death penalty could create a perverse incentive: if a predator faces death regardless of whether the child lives or dies, the predator may be more inclined to murder the child to eliminate a witness.
Legally, the death penalty in child abuse and sex trafficking cases also runs headlong into U.S. Supreme Court precedent – specifically the 2008 ruling that prohibits the death penalty in cases where the victim did not die.
That precedent comes from Kennedy v. Louisiana. In that case, Patrick O’Neal Kennedy was sentenced to death for repeatedly raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Kennedy ultimately evaded execution by successfully arguing the penalty violated his Eighth Amendment rights, which require punishments to be proportionate to crimes. Because the victim did not die, the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty disproportionate, ergo unconstitutional.
Speaking with Poliverse, Florida attorney Richard McKyton noted that the Kennedy decision was controversial at the time and has remained so, especially in Florida.
“When the Kennedy decision was handed down in 2008, there were lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who were unhappy with the decision, and, since then, there have been a few other states, like Florida, that have either passed legislation allowing the death penalty in child rape cases or have pending legislation on the subject,” McKyton said.
Indeed, Florida ratified its own legislation. Statute 794.011 was signed into law in 2023 and authorizes the death penalty for the sexual battery of a child under the age of 12 (qualifying Holmberg). But those cases can still be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court – and three newer Supreme Court justices have taken the bench since 2008, appointed by President Donald Trump.
“The U.S. Supreme Court leans more to the right now,” said McKyton. “If a case like the Holmberg matter was appealed and made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, it would not surprise me if the Court changed its position on death sentences for child rape cases.”
Uthmeier expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will reverse Kennedy. When asked, McKyton corroborated that such a reversal is possible.
“Could the U.S. Supreme Court reverse direction and, essentially, strike down, minimize or differentiate the Holmberg case from its decision in Kennedy? The answer is yes,” McKyton told Poliverse. “Courts change, Justices are replaced and, sometimes, the Court changes its mind … as it did on the abortion decision, Roe v. Wade.”
Investigators working the Holmberg case are still reviewing videos, according to Uthmeier, to build the prosecution’s case, and, perhaps, bring death. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of [content to review],” said Uthmeier, before closing his notes at the podium and exiting the stage.