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 Two upcoming executions, scheduled for February and March, could
be affected as the Florida Supreme Court agreed to consider
arguments on whether the ruling by the U.S. high court applied
retroactively.
The American Bar Association said Florida should hold off on pending
executions until the courts and lawmakers have addressed the fallout
from the ruling.
Florida has the second-largest number of people on death row of any
state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
"The current death penalty scheme in Florida is in limbo," said
Sarah Turberville, director of justice programs for the Constitution
Project, a bipartisan legal rights advocacy group.
In an 8-1 decision on Tuesday, U.S. justices found that Florida
unconstitutionally gives judges powers that juries should wield. The
ruling invalidated a system that has allowed judges, rather than
juries, to specify the aggravating factors that determine a
defendant's eligibility for execution.
While experts say the impact on other states is limited, changes in
Florida could dramatically shift the U.S. landscape for capital
punishment. Florida's death row is second in size only to
California, which has not carried out an execution in a decade, the
Death Penalty Information Center reports.
Some experts argued that scores of death sentences in Florida could
be seen as flawed.
"I don’t think it's possible to find a case that is not affected,"
said Karen Gottlieb, co-director of the Florida Center for Capital
Representation, based at Florida International University in Miami,
noting retroactivity questions.
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Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said state laws must be rewritten
but did not indicate how broadly. "The impact of the court’s ruling
on existing death sentences will need to be evaluated on a
case-by-case basis,” she said.
Just how much the Republican-controlled legislature is willing to
reform the state's death penalty sentencing process remains to be
seen.
"There is no appetite to repeal the death penalty," said
Representative Carlos Trujillo, chairman of the criminal justice
subcommittee in the Florida House of Representatives. He added he
expected to introduce a bill addressing only the issues raised in
the decision.
In the case reviewed by the high court, a jury voted 7-5 to
recommend a death sentence for Timothy Hurst in the 1998 murder of a
fried-chicken restaurant manager, without specifying what
aggravating factors applied.
(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Phil
Berlowitz)
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