Florida\u2019s new death penalty sentencing statute – to the extent that it allows juries to recommend death on a vote of 10-2 \u2014 is unconstitutional, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in a pair of cases on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Florida Supreme Court ruled that State Legislature fumbled\u00a0a re-write of the state’s death penalty statute earlier this year, meaning that Florida currently has no death penalty.
\nThe court also ruled that Timothy Lee Hurst, the man whose death penalty prompted the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year to declare Florida\u2019s death penalty unconstitutional, was so badly harmed, he must be given a new sentencing hearing, the Orlando Sentinel reported.<\/p>\n
Those two rulings, released at the same time this morning, were a blow not just to the Florida Legislature but also to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had argued that the error identified by the U.S. Supreme Court was harmless.<\/p>\n
\u201c[W]e hold that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Hurst v. Florida<\/i> requires that all the critical findings necessary before the trial court may consider imposing a sentence of death must be found unanimously by the jury,\u201d the court ruled in Hurst\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
This, the court explained, included not just the existence of aggravating circumstances during the sentencing phase of a capital case, but also the sufficiency of those aggravating circumstances and the finding that those aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating circumstances.<\/p>\n
Going further still, the court held that, \u201cbased on Florida\u2019s requirement for unanimity in jury verdicts, and under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that in order for the trial court to impose a sentence of death, the jury\u2019s recommended sentence of death must be unanimous.\u201d The court went on to hold that the Eighth Amendment\u2019s ban on cruel and unusual punishment also requires unanimity in sentencing recommendations of a jury.<\/p>\n
Because Florida\u2019s new statute allows a 10-2 vote for the recommendation of death, the court held, the law is not constitutional.<\/p>\n
In Larry Darnell Perry\u2019s case, the court summarized it as such: \u201cWhile most of the Act\u00a0can be construed constitutionally under our holding in Hurst<\/i>, the Act\u2019s 10-2 jury\u00a0recommendation requirement renders the Act unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"