Did Supreme Court ruling spare the lives of 389 Florida inmates?

Florida's death penalty system was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court last month, but the ruling will continue to influence capital punishment at large. 

|
Scott Keeler/The Tampa Bay Times/AP
State Sen. Rob Bradley, R- Fleming Island, center, asks a question of Julianne Holt, a Hillsborough Public Defender, during a Florida Senate Civil and Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee meeting concerning issues with the Florida's death penalty, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, in Tallahassee, Fla.

The Florida Supreme Court will decide Tuesday whether 389 inmates awaiting execution are to remain on death row. 

The US Supreme Court ruled on the case Hurst v. Florida on Jan. 12, striking down Florida’s death penalty system as unconstitutional in an 8 to 1 vote. While the Constitution mandates jury-appointed sentences for the accused, Florida state law authorized judges to issue the death penalty, even if the jury recommends otherwise.

Under Florida’s past system, a jury decides if the defendant is guilty of a capital crime and then issues an advisory sentence. The trial judge then gives “great weight” to the jury’s recommendation, but ultimately the judge makes the final call on capital punishment. Also particular to Florida, unanimity is not required: the jury can recommend a death sentence by a majority vote.

But after reviewing the sentencing timeline of Timothy Hurst, convicted of murdering an assistant manager at Popeye’s Fried Chicken in 1998, the highest court ruled against the practice of vesting the ultimate decision in Florida’s judges. 

“We hold this sentencing scheme unconstitutional,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion last month. “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death.” 

Capital punishment opponents see this ruling as a victory. 

“Juries across the country have become increasingly reluctant to vote in favor of death,” Cassandra Stubbs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, said in a statement. 

But as effects from the Hurst ruling continue to reverberate, opponents will likely see even more victories. 

Florida’s highest court will decide Tuesday if the ruling applies retroactively, affecting the state’s current 389 death row inmates.  

Dozens of conviction appeals have already been filed, and it’s possible the Hurst ruling could reduce the death sentences to life in prison. Capital punishment opponents are hopeful, knowing that the Florida’s Supreme Court will have to respond to a 1972 precedent that deemed the death penalty unconstitutional as it was practiced at the time.

“Florida’s response was to vacate every single death sentence, no matter when it had been entered, and convert it to a life sentence,” Martin McClain, a defense lawyer for one inmate appealing his conviction after Hurst, told NPR. “That’s what you do when your statute for imposing a death sentence has been rendered unconstitutional.”  

And Florida was one of three states with the judge jurisdiction provision: Alabama and Delaware still authorize advisory sentences by juries and final decisions by judges in capital punishment cases. 

While neither state has seen immediate repercussions, experts say Hurst-induced change is likely coming. 

“It’s my opinion that it really casts doubt on the validity of Delaware’s death penalty scheme,” Brendan O’Neill, Delaware’s chief defender, told Delaware Online. 

And Evan Mandery, a death penalty scholar, has said it is unlikely Alabama’s law can survive the Hurst ruling unscathed. 

For death penalty opponents, Florida’s majority jury provision is likely next on the to-do list. State Senator Thad Altman (R) has tried for years to require unanimous jury sentences because he feels unanimity depends on a level of deliberation warranted by death penalty cases. 

“The Legislature here is very pro-death penalty,” Sen. Altman told The New York Times. “They don’t want to be perceived as being soft on crime in any way and make it more difficult to sentence someone to death.” 

The statistics back up Sen. Altman’s claims. 

Florida has conducted 92 executions since 1976, putting the state in fourth place behind Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia. And as of July 1, 2015, Florida had 400 inmates on death row, second only to California with 746.  

In 2014, Duval County, which includes the city of Jacksonville, handed down more death sentences per capita than any other place in America. 

“We live in a conservative county… that values personal responsibility, which means that people here also value personal accountability,” Florida Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda tells The Christian Science Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson.  

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Did Supreme Court ruling spare the lives of 389 Florida inmates?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2016/0202/Did-Supreme-Court-ruling-spare-the-lives-of-389-Florida-inmates
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe