On June 20, U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez declared Florida​’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because jurors are not required to make find­ings beyond a rea­son­able doubt on the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors that can increase a guilty defen­dan­t’s sen­tence from life to death. The rul­ing man­dates that defen­dants have a Sixth Amendment right to have all essen­tial ele­ments of proof in crim­i­nal cas­es found by a jury rather than by a judge. Legal experts say the rul­ing could have an impor­tant impact on oth­er death penal­ty cas­es in the state and may lead to stays of exe­cu­tion. In his rul­ing, Judge Martinez said that Florida’s sen­tenc­ing sys­tem vio­lates the U.S. Supreme Court​’s hold­ing in Ring v. Arizona (2002), which allowed judges to make the final sen­tenc­ing choice between death and life but requires that jurors first deter­mine whether a defen­dant is eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The rul­ing, which is sub­ject to appeal, came in the case of Paul Evans, who may now get a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. His mur­der con­vic­tion still stands.

In Florida, the jury must decide on the defen­dan­t’s guilt unan­i­mous­ly and beyond a rea­son­able doubt. For sen­tenc­ing, how­ev­er, the jury only makes a rec­om­men­da­tion on whether the defen­dant should be sen­tenced to life or death, and makes no spe­cif­ic find­ings with respect to the exis­tence of aggra­vat­ing fac­tors that make a per­son eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The judge can then con­cur or over­ride the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion. Judge Martinez wrote, ​“The defen­dant [in Florida] has no way of know­ing whether or not the jury found the same aggra­vat­ing fac­tors as the judge. The judge, unaware of the aggra­vat­ing fac­tor or fac­tors found by the jury, may find an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance that was not found by the jury.” In most states, the jury decides both guilt and sen­tence in capital cases.

(C. Anderson, ​“US judge: Fla. death sen­tences uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” Miami Herald, June 22, 2011). See U.S. Supreme Court and States with Jury or Judge Sentencing.

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