Florida’s Death Sentencing Scheme Is Unconstitutional, Supreme Court Rules

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.

Sotomayor said Florida’s system is flawed because it allows a sentencing judge to find aggravating factors “independent of a jury’s fact finding”. But that sentence was imposed by a judge after a jury split 7-5 over whether the death penalty was warranted.

Hurst v. Florida is one of several cases the court has heard or will hear this term challenging the way states carry their capital sentencing regimes – though none of them directly attack the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Under the court’s decision, Florida now must resentence Hurst by allowing a jury to determine whether the facts of his case merit the death penalty or only a term of life in prison.

“The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant’s right to an impartial jury”, Sotomayor wrote.

The United States executed 28 people in 2015, the fewest since 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Hurst was convicted in 2000 and the jury voted 11 to 1 to recommend a death sentence.

“Actually, I like the idea of the judge doing that”, said Fletcher, who was a prosecutor for decades. “In light of this evidence, it defies belief to suggest that the jury would not have found the existence of either aggravating factor if its finding was binding”.

“I will work with state lawmakers this legislative session to ensure that those changes comply with the Court’s latest decision”. His measure would require unanimous juries in all death penalty decisions, not just when deciding aggravating circumstances.

It was unclear how the ruling would immediately affect the 400 inmates facing the death penalty in Florida, though a number of similar challenges might be forthcoming. Florida state courts would need to decide if the now-void sentencing procedure was a “harmless error” that would not have had any bearing on Hurt’s death sentence, meaning that Hurt would have been sentenced to death regardless of exactly how it occurred.

Sotomayor added that “time and subsequent cases have washed away the logic” of earlier court decisions that upheld Florida’s system.

Alabama death penalty cases feature a two-part process, the guilt phase and, if the defendant is convicted, a penalty phase.

Howard Simon, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, says the ruling validates what advocates have argued for years.

The judge then sentenced Hurst to death and concluded that the factors that applied were that the man committed the murder while in a robbery and that the crime was heinous.

Neither did Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. And, he said, any capital cases that are awaiting trial would likely be delayed while state legislators and the Florida Supreme Court sort out the next steps.