--- title: 'Florida Supreme Court Limits Retroactive Scope of Its Ruling Permitting Death Sentences After Non-Unanimous Jury Votes' description: 'In two long-awaited decisions that will alter the landscape of Florida’s death row, the Florida Supreme Court has limited the reach of a landmark ruling…' canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/florida-supreme-court-limits-retroactive-scope-of-its-ruling-permitting-death-sentences-after-non-unanimous-jury-votes' section: news date: '2020-12-01T18:54:00-05:00' updated: '2025-03-14T15:09:41-04:00' source: 'Death Penalty Information Center' --- ! In two long-awaited decisions that will alter the landscape of Florida’s death row, the Florida Supreme Court has limited the reach of a landmark ruling that overturned the state’s constitutional prohibition against death sentences imposed after a non-unanimous jury vote for death. The court’s January 2020 decision in *State v. Poole* had raised the specter that the court might rescind orders that had overturned the death sentences of more than 100 Florida death-row prisoners and granted them new sentencing trials. However, on November 25, the court decided the cases of two defendants sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries who had been awaiting resentencing under the court’s 2016 decision, *Hurst v. State*. In those cases, the court unanimously rebuffed state prosecutors’ efforts to reinstate the death sentences of [Bessman Okafor](https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/content/download/691159/opinion/sc20-323.pdf) and [Michael James Jackson](https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/content/download/691145/opinion/sc20-257.pdf) without affording them the capital resentencing hearings previously ordered by the court. In January 2020, after state trial and appellate courts had overturned the death sentences of numerous death-row prisoners, the Florida Supreme Court receded from its decision in *Hurst* and reinstated Mark Anthony Poole’s non-unanimous death sentence. The court subsequently applied that change in the law to other cases in which prosecutors had appealed lower court decisions that had relied on *Hurst* in granting death-row prisoners new sentencing trials. Prosecutors across the state then attempted to cancel the penalty-phase trials and reinstate the death sentences of prisoners who had been granted relief under *Hurst* but had not yet completed the resentencing process. Rejecting the prosecutors’ position, the court stated that once an order vacating a death sentence has become final, “neither we nor the trial court can lawfully reinstate that sentence.” In *State v. Okafor*, prosecutors argued that the Florida Supreme Court should reinstate Bessman Okafor’s death sentence even though it had vacated his death sentence during his 2017 direct appeal. In *State v. Jackson*, prosecutors argued that Michael James Jackson was not entitled to a resentencing hearing even though the prosecution had not appealed a trial court order granting Jackson relief based on *Hurst*. In unsigned opinions, the court wrote that in both cases, the decisions overturning the death sentences had become final and were not subject to further judicial review. The court “acknowledge\[d\] the burden that resentencing proceedings will place on the \[family members of\] victims” in Okafor’s and Jackson’s cases and “in similar cases that will be governed by our decision here. Nonetheless” the court said, “our holding is compelled by applicable law.” After a series of controversial decisions removing substantive and procedural protections from capital defendants and death-row prisoners, advocates and legal scholars were not certain that the court would respect the finality of final judgments under *Hurst*. The court had denied relief to capital appellants in more than fifty consecutive cases and in the span of less than a year had [receded from *Hurst*](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/florida-supreme-court-retracts-jury-unanimity-requirement-reinstates-non-unanimous-death-sentence), abandoned a century-old standard for heightened review in cases in which a conviction rested solely on [circumstantial evidence](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/florida-supreme-court-changes-law-again-to-further-diminish-legal-protections-in-death-penalty-cases), limited enforcement of a U.S. Supreme Court case that bars execution of [intellectually disabled prisoners](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/florida-supreme-court-limits-enforcement-of-supreme-court-decision-barring-execution-of-intellectually-disabled-prisoners), and declared the 50-year-old capital appeal safeguard of [proportionality review](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/florida-supreme-court-abandons-50-year-old-proportionality-safeguard-for-capital-defendants) to be unconstitutional. Advocates expressed relief at the decision. Maria DeLiberato, one of Jackson’s lawyers, said that while *Poole* had “stripped away important constitutional protections, the Court acknowledged today that the Legislature has recognized that Florida’s previous outlier status in allowing non-unanimous recommendations in death penalty cases will not continue.” Hannah Gorman, a research scholar at the Florida International University College of Law’s Florida Center for Capital Representation, said, “Finally, the Florida Supreme Court gives us a good decision. One hundred lives now have a shot at a fair penalty trial.” David Ovalle, [Florida Supreme Court won’t reinstate death penalty for killers once sentenced to execution](https://www.miamiherald.com/article247421590.html), Miami Herald, November 27, 2020; Monivette Cordeiro, [Florida Supreme Court refuses to restore death sentence for Bessman Okafor](https://orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-ne-florida-supreme-court-okafor-death-sentence-20201125-w4eiivntwrgrfbhc2bf3gilprm-story.html), Orlando Sentinel, November 27, 2020; Dara Kam and Jim Saunders, [Supreme Court refuses to reinstate death sentences, including Jacksonvlle case](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/courts/2020/11/26/supreme-court-refuses-reinstate-death-sentences-including-duvals/6427100002/), News Service of Florida, November 26, 2020. Read [*State v. Okafor*](https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/content/download/691159/opinion/sc20-323.pdf) and *[State v. Jackson](https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/content/download/691145/opinion/sc20-257.pdf).*