Marty McClain, a lawyer who has represented Death Row inmates in Florida for at least two decades, said Tuesday’s decision was more complicated than it appeared because it “changes the boundaries” of first-degree murder convictions that result in death sentences.
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As a result of the SCOTUS decision, the case of Timothy Lee Hurst will be referred back to the lower courts.
Stephen Harper and Karen Gottlieb, attorneys for the Florida Center for Capital Representation at the Florida International University College of Law, called for Gov. Scott or the courts to halt all executions while the ruling is being reviewed.
Either way he will embark on new hearings and experts believe numerous 400 prisoners currently on death row in Florida now have scope to argue for fresh appeals against their sentence.
“It’s a good opinion, but it doesn’t give us a lot of guidance”.
In Tallahassee, Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, is sponsoring a bill which would require a unanimous jury vote in death penalty cases.
Florida was one of only four states that left the decision on the death penalty in the hands of the trial judge; the others are Alabama, Delaware and Montana. His proposal would require jurors to unanimously find that there are aggravating circumstances in a case, which would warrant a death sentence. “There is no evidence that criminal activity is more heinous in Alabama than in other states or that Alabama juries are particularly lenient”. At his 2001 trial, Bolin waived a jury’s sentencing recommendation.
Jurors in Florida eventually convicted Hurst, Harrison’s coworker, of first-degree murder, and proceeded to render an “advisory sentence” of death. “The Eighth Amendment requires that a jury, not a judge, make the decision to sentence a defendant to death'”. They rarely went against the jury’s advice.
Writing for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said a jury’s “mere recommendation is not enough”. The judges in those cases overrode the recommendations.
In other states, the death penalty sentence is only reached if the jury make a unanimous decision.
The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement saying the ruling reflects a national decline in support for the death penalty.
In 2009, Telzer said, a landscaper hammered her mother-in-law to death.
“The death penalty is still constitutional; we will still follow this law in appropriate cases”, said de la Rionda. “And before they were not”. And it just might prompt Florida to drag itself into the modern world and abolish the death penalty.
There are hundreds of inmates in Florida prisons sitting on death row, including some prominent Central Florida convicts. Nationwide, the number of death sentences being handed down is waning except in a few counties. Presiding officers and their attorneys in the House and Senate also were reviewing it. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters her office was examining the ruling and its potential impact on inmates already sentenced to death.
For now, the heavy lifting in dealing with the legal fallout of Tuesday’s opinion falls to the Legislature.
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Bakkedahl said he’s considering filing papers with Vaughn before Friday expressing his position on the ruling and how, in light of that opinion, state prosecutors should proceed.
