The ruling will likely give new sentencing hearings to inmates who were recently sentenced to death in Florida, but the justices in the past have said such new rulings do not apply automatically to old cases.
Advertisement
Sotomayor said Florida’s system is flawed because it allows a sentencing judge to find aggravating factors “independent of a jury’s fact-finding”.
Although Hurt won the case, it does not necessarily save him from the death penalty. She spoke with WLRN anchor Christine DiMattei about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.
Sotomayor acknowledged that the Supreme Court had twice upheld Florida’s death penalty process.
Still even staunch conservatives on the bench have conceded that the courts will inevitably have to decide once again whether to keep the death penalty as the law of the land.
The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant’s right to an impartial jury. However, most of the state’s prisoners will not be affected because their appeals have run out or their convictions were based on indisputable aggravating circumstances. The jury then issues a recommendation for the judge on what they think is the appropriate sentence.
Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision calls into question Alabama’s similar death sentencing scheme.
Without such judge-made findings, the maximum punishment someone convicted of a capital crime can receive in Florida is life in prison without parole.
The justices sent the case back to the Florida Supreme Court to determine whether Hurst should be resentenced. ‘Time and subsequent cases have washed away the logic of Spaziano and Hildwin. But the Florida Supreme Court’s previous rulings on retroactive application are much broader than its national counterpart. He asked one of the friends to hide a container of money that he said was from the Popeye’s safe. “A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough”. But it would certainly affect capital cases awaiting trial. The Legislature has resisted efforts to fix the unique process, and now the state has no choice. He was granted a new sentencing hearing in 2012. A jury divided 7-5 for death, but a judge imposed the sentence. The Court held that this difference is immaterial.
“None of them holds water”, she wrote.
The Sixth Amendment grants defendants, such as Hurst, the right to have their verdict decided by a jury if the death penalty is involved, the highest federal court ruled. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the sentence by a 4-3 vote.
The judge, however, is not obliged to follow the jury’s advice in deciding whether the necessary aggravating circumstances are present in the murder to justify the death penalty. SCOTUS members include Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Justice Elena Kagan.
The evidence against Hurst is “overwhelming”, Alito said. The judge can also weigh factors the jury never considered. “Nobody should be surprised by this decision by the nation’s highest court”.
Advertisement
There are 390 inmates on death row in the state right now. It will also change the prosecutors seek death in the future. “There is a relationship between these two aspects of the death penalty system in Florida”. The justices had just ruled on a narrow case involving lethal injection protocols, but had found themselves increasingly pressed to address the moral issues being raised out of legal challenges, appeals and exonerations that were becoming impossible to ignore.
