Florida’s revised death penalty law ruled unconstitutional by state’s high court

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

October 14 at 5:05 PM

Just seven months after Florida revamped its death penalty law, the state’s Supreme Court struck down the new statute as unconstitutional because it does not require juries to be unanimous about handing down the sentences.

With a pair of rulings Friday, the Florida Supreme Court further added to the uncertainty surrounding the death penalty in the state, one of the country’s leading practitioners of capital punishment and home to the second-biggest death-row population nationwide.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s old law as unconstitutional in January because it allowed judges, not juries, to make the final decision about imposing capital sentences.

In response to the high court’s ruling, Florida enacted a new measure in March that said jurors must unanimously agree that a case involves at least one aggravating circumstance necessary to warrant a death sentence. The new death-penalty law also increased the number of jurors needed to approve a death sentence, pushing it to 10 jurors from the seven previously needed.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/floridas-revised-death-penalty-law-ruled-unconstitutional-by-states-high-court/2016/10/14/8ab3cdb6-922c-11e6-9c85-ac42097b8cc0_story.html

[Ligyron]

1. No clue as to what happens to those previously convicted and sentenced to death.

What happens when the juries involved were not unanimous in their recommendations for the death penalty?

[Jake Stern]

2. Too bad Florida (and the rest of pro-death America) can't bring themselves

to abolish this barbarity.

Hate all you like but I don't see how anybody who considers themselves civilized and enlightened could support such disgusting blood lust.

[lastlib]

3. AGREED!

Time to abolish it--HIGH PAST time, in fact. The state should NOT have the power to take life. It IS barbaric and uncivilized, and it puts us in some rather unpleasant company--China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and God knows how many other Third-World-wannabes that practice it.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. The majority of people here

are anti-death penalty (as am I)

[Taitertots]

5. You should have more compassion for their future victims

Even if those victims are other prisoners and prison staff.

The real barbarity is ignoring the lasting costs other people face by removing the death penalty. The future victims of the dangerous criminals who would otherwise get killed by the state.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. That presumes soothsaying.

And that's just ridiculous.