Supreme Court rules against Florida death penalty

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Florida's system for sentencing people to death is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to judges and not enough to juries to decide capital sentences.

The 8-1 ruling said that the state's sentencing procedure is flawed because juries play only an advisory role in recommending death while the judge can reach a different decision.

The court sided with Timothy Lee Hurst, who was convicted of the 1998 murder of his manager at a Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola. A jury was divided 7-5 in favor of death, and a judge imposed the sentence.

Florida's solicitor general argued that the system was acceptable because a jury first decides if the defendant is eligible for the death penalty.

Writing for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said a jury's “mere recommendation is not enough.” She said the court was overruling previous decisions upholding the state’s sentencing process.

“The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death,” she wrote.

The justices sent the case back to the Florida Supreme Court to determine whether the error in sentencing Hurst was harmless or whether he should get a new sentencing hearing.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, saying that the trial judge in Florida simply performs a reviewing function that duplicates what the jury has done.

Under Florida law, the state requires juries in capital sentencing hearings to weigh factors for and against imposing a death sentence. But the judge is not bound by those findings and can reach a different conclusion. The judge can also weigh other factors independently. So a jury could base its decision on one particular aggravating factor, but a judge could decide on the basis of a different factor, even one the jury never considered.

In Hurst’s case, prosecutors asked the jury to consider two aggravating factors: the murder was committed during a robbery, and it was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” as the Florida sentencing statute puts it. But the state does not require the jury to say how it voted on each factor. Hurst’s attorney argued that it was possible that four jurors agreed with one while three agreed with the other.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that a defendant has the right to have a jury decide whether the circumstances of a crime warrant a sentence of death.

Florida is one of only three states that do not require a unanimous jury verdict when sentencing someone to death. The others are Alabama and Delaware.

Wire services