From a release issued by the Innocence Project of Florida issued today, 12 January, 2016; "This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an 8-1 opinion in
Hurst v. Florida (No.
14-7505), holding Florida’s death penalty scheme unconstitutional. The
Court found that because Florida’s death penalty statute gives the
sentencing judge, rather than the jury, the ultimate responsibility to
find aggravating factors and make the sentencing determination, the
statute violates
Ring v. Arizona and the Sixth
Amendment right to a jury trial. The decision may invalidate the
sentences of many or even most of the roughly 400 individuals on death
row, requiring new sentencing hearings, and will likely lead to a
legislative amendment of Florida’s death penalty statute to conform it
with the constitutional parameters announced in Supreme Court precedent.
IPF Executive Director Seth Miller, made the following statement on behalf of the organization: “It is heartening that the United States Supreme Court
recognized the need for core, necessary procedural safeguards to have a
death penalty system in Florida. No person should be sentenced to death
and executed as a result of a system that does not comport with the
Constitution. Florida also leads the nation in exonerations from death
row. Florida similarly should adopt a number of procedural safeguards,
such as updates to procedures for collecting eyewitness evidence,
recording of custodial interrogations and preventing the taint of
unvalidated forensic sciences on trials, all of which are leading causes
of wrongful convictions. Until such time that these and other
safeguards are adopted, Florida should put a moratorium on death
sentences and executions, as the risk of wrongful execution is too
great. You can read the
opinion here."
http://floridainnocence.org/content/?p=12225
See USA Today story: "The ruling in the case brought by death row prisoner Timothy
Hurst won't affect other states, where juries have considerably more
power and their verdicts must be unanimous. Still, it's another setback
for proponents of capital punishment nationally at a time when the
Supreme Court is hearing many such cases — and could ultimately rule on
whether the death penalty itself violates the Constitution."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/12/supreme-court-florida-death-penalty-sentence-judge-jury/76466834/