A Florida tri­al judge in St. Lucie County sen­tenced Eriese Tisdale to death on April 29 for the killing of a sher­if­f’s sergeant, rely­ing on sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures from the ver­sion of Florida’s death penal­ty law that the U.S. Supreme Court declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Hurst v. Florida. The jury in Tisdale’s case con­sid­ered the evi­dence in the penal­ty phase of Tisdale’s tri­al under the old Florida law, vot­ing 9 – 3 to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence with­out spec­i­fy­ing the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors that would make Tisdale eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The Supreme Court struck down Florida’s sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dure in Hurst because a judge, rather than a jury, made the fac­tu­al deter­mi­na­tion of aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances that were nec­es­sary to impose a death sen­tence. In response to Hurst, Florida enact­ed a new law, which went into effect March 7, requir­ing juries to make unan­i­mous deter­mi­na­tions of aggra­vat­ing fac­tors, and pre­con­di­tion­ing any death sen­tence upon a jury vote of at least 10 – 2 vote in favor of death. The statute declares ​“If few­er than 10 jurors deter­mine that the defen­dant should be sen­tenced to death, the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion to the court shall be a sen­tence of life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” In those cir­cum­stances, the law states, ​“the court shall impose the rec­om­mend­ed sen­tence.” Tisdale’s penal­ty phase was tried in October 2015, before the Supreme Court declared the sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and the jury’s 9 – 3 rec­om­men­da­tion for death came before the new law adopt­ed the 10 – 2 require­ment. His lawyers argued that he could not be sen­tenced to death because the old pro­ce­dures were uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and the jury vote did not qual­i­fy as a death rec­om­men­da­tion under the new law. But a St. Lucie County judge ruled that the jury’s unan­i­mous vote to con­vict Tisdale for the mur­der of a law enforce­ment offi­cial amount­ed to a unan­i­mous find­ing of an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, accept­ed the jury’s 9 – 3 death rec­om­men­da­tion, and sen­tenced Tisdale to death. Tisdale is the first per­son sen­tenced to death in Florida since the new law went into effect.

(M. McRoberts, ​“Eriese Tisdale sen­tenced to death by judge for killing Sgt. Gary Morales,” WPTV, April 29, 2016; M. Holsman, ​“Judge sen­tences con­vict­ed cop killer Tisdale to death,” TC Palm, April 29, 2016.) See Sentencing and Recent Legislative Activity.

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