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| Florida's death chamber |
For the 2nd time this year, a court has ruled that Florida's death penalty statute is unconstitutional.
This time, it was the Florida Supreme Court, handing down a pair of historic rulings on Oct. 14 that shifted Florida into the legal mainstream and are expected to cut the number of people sent to death row.
Florida has not executed anyone since Jan. 7 because of uncertainty about its death penalty, and Friday's rulings are expected to extend that moratorium indefinitely.
'A clear outlier'
In the 1st case, the Florida high court threw out the death penalty given to a Pensacola killer, Timothy Lee Hurst, because jurors had not unanimously recommended it. Their vote was 7-5.
In the 2nd case, the court ruled that the Florida Legislature botched its rewrite of the statute this year. The problem: The new law required just 10 of 12 jurors to agree on a death sentence.
"The Florida Supreme Court said today that is has to be unanimous under Florida law," said Stephen K. Harper, a death penalty specialist at Florida International University College of Law.
Until the Oct. 14 rulings, Florida was 1 of 3 states that did not require a unanimous jury recommendation in death penalty cases.
The high court said that made the state "a clear outlier."
Called historic
As a consequence of last Friday's rulings, Florida currently has no death penalty.
Former Circuit Judge O.H. "Bill" Eaton Jr. called the rulings historic, pointing out that for the 1st time in 44 years, no inmates will be sent to Florida's death row without all 12 members of a jury agreeing that that is the right punishment.
In the Hurst case, the high court ruled that the defendant must be given a new sentencing hearing.
Still unclear, though, is what will happen to the other inmates on Florida's death row and to murderers given the death penalty under the new statute, which was signed into law March 7 by Gov. Rick Scott.
Blow to Bondi
Some attorneys had urged the court to automatically convert all Florida death sentences to life in prison, but the recent opinions did not order that.
The new rulings were a blow not just to the Florida Legislature but also to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had defended the old and new laws.
Both of the Oct. 14 rulings were a consequence of an opinion handed down Jan. 12 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It ruled that Florida's death penalty was unconstitutional because it required a judge - not a jury - to decide whether a defendant should be put to death.
Bondi had argued that the error was harmless, but in that January ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court disagreed but left it to the Florida Supreme Court to hash out who, if anyone, was harmed.
Huge backlog?
The Florida Supreme Court answered that question last Friday, but only in part. Hurst was harmed, the court wrote, so he should be resentenced.
It was silent about all other death penalty cases.
Belvin Perry Jr., former chief judge of the Orange-Osceola circuit, predicted that all 385 death-row inmates would now file paperwork, arguing that they, too, were harmed.
It might mean a huge backlog for the Florida Supreme Court and for trial courts, he said.
But Harper and Eaton predicted the rulings could apply to far fewer cases, primarily those with active appeals and those that have not gone to trial.
All 3 legal experts faulted members of the Florida Legislature. Eaton said they had been warned repeatedly since 2000 that they needed to rewrite the statute to require unanimous jury recommendations.
Opposed by speaker
The next speaker of the Florida House, Richard Corcoran, attacked Friday's ruling as "a miscarriage of justice ... and dangerous for our state."
"We will take a close look at today's rulings and consider our options going forward," he said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Scott wrote in an email that his office was reviewing the rulings. That was the same message from the office of outgoing Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner and his successor, Joe Negron.
A spokesman for Bondi wrote the same thing, adding, "In the meantime Florida juries must make unanimous decisions in capital cases as to the appropriateness of the death penalty."
Source: Florida Courier, October 21, 2016
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