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Bill requiring unanimous verdict for death penalty in Florida advances

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Legislation requiring a unanimous verdict from the jury to recommend the death penalty will head to the state Senate floor after passing a committee vote Monday. The Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee passed its version of a bill (SB 7068) that would revise Florida’s sentencing process for the death penalty. The Legislature is tasked with rewriting how to sentence someone to death after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current method unconstitutional. In an 8-1 ruling last month in Hurst vs.…

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Today on Context Florida: Florida’s legislative intransigence, not just who you know, “fail first” and protecting Bimini

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Today on Context Florida: In the second of a three-part series, Julie Delegal recounts the Florida Legislature’s history of intransigence when it comes to the requirement that penalty-phase vertex be unanimous to impose capital punishment. Now, in light of a January U.S. Supreme Court ruling, attorneys agree there is no constitutional means by which to sentence convicted murderers to death in Florida. “It’s who you know.” Dale Brill says we have all experienced it, even if we do not recognize it.…

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Legislators promise to keep death penalty, fix law

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Saying it’s time to put the “death penalty” debate to rest, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature began taking its first steps Wednesday to find a way to preserve executions in the state. State senators spent hours with prosecutors, former judges, and defenders to come up with a way to respond to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. The nation’s highest court earlier this month found that Florida’s death penalty procedure is flawed because it allows judges — not juries — to…

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Today on Context Florida: Florida death penalty, ALICE, South Tampa politicos and Florida’s dim prospects

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Today on Context Florida: To find someone guilty of a crime — any crime — jurors have to agree unanimously. Not so to impose the death penalty, says Julie Delegal. Not here in Florida. And that’s why Florida’s death penalty sentencing procedure is in constitutional hot water. As Florida law stands now, after jurors find a defendant guilty of first-degree murder, they aren’t required to deliberate to the point of unanimity to sentence a murderer to death. They only take a…

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Today on Context Florida: Death penalty, assaulting the environment, tattoos & Jimmy Buffett, and ugly incidents

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Today on Context Florida: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death penalty sentencing system last week, declaring that it violates defendants’ Sixth Amendment Rights to trial by jury. In response to the Hurst v. Florida decision, Julie Delegal shows us a Jacksonville coalition of civic and faith groups — Justice 4 Jacksonville — is calling on State Attorney Angela Corey to stop action in all capital murder cases until Florida’s sentencing statutes are repaired: “Today’s ruling proves what the Justice 4 Jacksonville Coalition…

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Florida asks court to deny inmate’s execution-delay request

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Florida asked the state’s high court on Thursday to reject a condemned inmate’s request to delay his execution based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s finding that its procedure for imposing the death penalty is illegal. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s office said the U.S. Supreme Court’s finding should not be applied retroactively to already-settled death penalty cases. Ruling on the Hurst v. Florida case Tuesday, the nation’s highest court ruled 8-1 that Florida’s procedure is flawed because it allows judges,…

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Pam Bondi goes to Nevada

Drawing on lessons learned after a nightclub massacre last year in Orlando, Attorney General Pam Bondi and members of her

Today on Context Florida: Florida’s death penalty, alimony “reform,” Key West traffic and Obama’s State of the Union

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Today on Context Florida: According to Martin Dyckman, nothing else that government does costs as much as the death penalty in order to accomplish so little. This ought to concern even the most conservative legislators as they cope with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision Tuesday, in Hurst v. Florida that the state’s capital sentencing process is unconstitutional. The choice now is to fix it or repeal it. “Those are our two options,” said Carlos Trujillo, the House Criminal Justice chairman.…

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