– Will two Highlands County defendants be retried?
Advertisement
By an 8-1 decision the Supreme Court found that Florida law violates the sixth amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees a right to trial by jury because juries play only an advisory role in recommending death while the judge can reach a different decision.
“It doesn’t mention anything about it being a retroactive type thing in the opinion and so I don’t know that this is going to be, have a retroactive effect”, said Sims.
The ruling could impact hundreds of people now on Death Row, including many from Jacksonville. His defense attorneys also have argued he was psychologically damaged from childhood and has below-average mental capacity.
How many Florida death-row inmates will be eligible for resentencing is unknown. Kelley was arrested 17 years later for the stabbing and shooting, and sentenced to death in 1984. The defendant, Timothy Lee Hurst, will see his case go back to the lower courts, while lawyers scramble to review the convictions of other inmates on Florida’s death row.
“There are some real benefits associated with judicial sentences”, Florida Solicitor General Allen Winsor said, according to USA Today.
Justice Samuel Alito dissented, saying that the trial judge in Florida simply performs a reviewing function that duplicates what the jury has done. “It’s another safeguard. If the jury does the wrong thing, the judge can override it. Juries can run away”.
Death penalty opponents hailed the decision as progress toward abolition of capital punishment in the US. But that sentence was imposed by a judge after a jury split 7-5 over whether the death penalty was warranted.
The Court also rejected the State of Florida’s contention that sentencing jury recommended a death sentence, it “necessarily included a finding of an aggravating circumstance”.
“The timing is right for us to make that necessary adjustment and modernize our death penalty system so we can continue to have capital punishment in the state of Florida”, said Rep. Gaetz.
“It is no surprise that the high court found Florida’s hit-or-miss death sentencing scheme unconstitutional”, Mark Elliott, Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in a statement.
De la Rionda says- in his interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling- the cases which have already gone through appeal will not be affected by this ruling.
“The maximum punishment Timothy Hurst could have received without any judge-made findings was life in prison without parole”, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the court opinion. But Justice Sotomayor said those earlier decisions had been undercut by a 2002 Supreme Court decision in an Arizona death penalty case.
“In a death penalty case, you would think it would be obvious that a jury make a unanimous decision one way or the other, regarding a person’s life or death”, Hornsby said. Once that is rendered, the judge then independently weighs the evidence and hands down the actual sentence.
It is not yet clear how the ruling will affect Alabama law.
Advertisement
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
