Support for the death penalty was widely criticized in 2015, a year in which the US saw fewer executions carried out than it had in years.
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The Constitution means for “a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death, ” Sotomayor wrote. Florida’s solicitor general, Allen Winsor, argued in court in October that the state’s system of having judges and juries go through separate processes offers more, not less, protection for capital defendants. He was convicted of killing three women in the Tampa area.
Studies show that more than 20 percent of inmates on Alabama’s death row were recommended by juries to serve life in prison without parole. The recent ruling could affect the ongoing cases in the state, but the ones where the decision is final will not be retrial.
In the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death”.
Previous year the Florida Supreme Court left Marquardt’s murder convictions standing. He wrote that it “defies belief” to think that a jury would have reached a different finding on the death penalty if they had been informed their’s, not the judge’s, was the final decision.
Hurst’s scope beyond that will depend on the scope of future court decisions.
But Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at the Ohio State University, observed that unless there’s a legislative fix to Florida’s capital sentencing structure, the Hurst ruling will likely lead to “multi-headed, snake-like litigation” to determine to what extent it applies to the 400 inmates now on death row in the state. “The impact of the Court’s ruling on existing death sentences will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis”.
“I felt that Florida’s death penalty was very constitutional because it was a just award for a crime that was committed that caused the death of someone else”, said Senate Criminal Justice chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker.
Therefore, they say legislators will have to change the law in order for sentencing requirements to change. As far back as 2005, the Florida Supreme Court urged lawmakers to consider unanimity for death recommendations.
Hurst was convicted of the 1998 murder of Cynthia Lee Harrison, a manager at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant in Escambia County, Florida. A jury recommended a death sentence by a 7-5 vote, but without any finding of facts that justified the sentence and no way to know whether even those seven recommending death agreed on a single aggravating factor or justification.
The Supreme Court had twice upheld the Florida capital sentencing scheme in 1984 and in 1989. But Florida law did not require the jury to say how it voted on each factor. But it is unclear whether all seven agreed on both, or, for example, whether four agreed on one and three on the other.
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State Attorney Bill Eddins expressed his disappointment with the Supreme Court opinion, but said he expected that most death penalty cases could continue in some capacity while the state legislature rewrote capital sentencing laws.
