Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch (pic­tured) ruled on May 9 that Florida’s new death sen­tenc­ing law vio­lates the state’s con­sti­tu­tion. Ruling in the case of Karon Gaiter, who is await­ing a cap­i­tal tri­al, Judge Hirsch said new law’s require­ment that at least 10 jurors agree to the death penal­ty before a defen­dant can be sen­tenced to death vio­lat­ed Florida’s con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment that all jury ver­dicts must be unan­i­mous. ​“For the ulti­mate deci­sions made with­in the judi­cial branch of gov­ern­ment — guilty or not guilty, life or death — major­i­ty rule is insuf­fi­cient,” Hirsch wrote. ​“We do ask, indeed we insist, that the deci­sions of cap­i­tal juries be, in some sense, per­fect; for they are, in some sense, final. We ask, indeed we insist, that they reflect the will of all rather than the will of the few or even of the many.… However out­ra­geous a crime, how­ev­er con­tro­ver­sial a case, as Floridians and Americans we … can­not accede, we will not accede, we have nev­er acced­ed, to out­comes as to which no more can be said than that some jurors have spo­ken.” Hirsch wrote that the state’s pre­vi­ous death penal­ty statute, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida, did not raise this con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion because the jury’s advi­so­ry penal­ty-phase sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion ​“was, in effect, a straw poll” rather than a ver­dict. Hirsch’s deci­sion comes as the Florida Supreme Court con­sid­ers how Hurst will affect the near­ly 400 death row pris­on­ers sen­tenced under the pre­vi­ous sen­tenc­ing scheme. The Miami-Dade state’s attor­ney’s office said it would appeal Hirsch’s ruling.

(D. Ovalle, ​“Judge says state death-penal­ty law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” Miami Herald, May 9, 2016; J. Reedy, ​“Florida judge: New death penal­ty law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” Associated Press, May 9, 2016.) Read Judge Hirsch’s deci­sion here. See Florida and Sentencing.

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