Jurors Speak About Decision to Impose Life Sentence in Florida Case at Center of Conflict Between Prosecutor and Governor

On March 16, 2017, say­ing that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is ​“not in the best inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty or in the best inter­ests of jus­tice,” Orange/​Osceola County (FL) state pros­e­cu­tor Aramis Ayala announced that her office would not pur­sue the death penal­ty in any case. That deci­sion, announced in con­nec­tion with the pros­e­cu­tion of a man charged with killing his ex-girl­friend, her unborn child, and a police offi­cer respond­ing to the crime, ignit­ed a polit­i­cal firestorm in which then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott removed Ayala from the case and replaced her with a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor. Scott sub­se­quent­ly issued exec­u­tive orders remov­ing Ayala from at least 26 oth­er homicide cases.

On October 23, 2019, a Florida jury reject­ed the death penal­ty in the case that start­ed it all, impos­ing a life sen­tence on Markeith Loyd (pic­tured) for the killings of Sade Dixon and her unborn child. The spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor had sought the death penal­ty over the objec­tion of Dixon’s fam­i­ly, who had sup­port­ed Ayala’s deci­sion to decap­i­tal­ize the case. Loyd still faces a sec­ond tri­al and pos­si­ble death sen­tence for the mur­der of police Lieutenant Debra Clayton.

Two jurors from Loyd’s tri­al spoke to local news out­let WFTV in ear­ly November, explain­ing how they reached their deci­sion. One juror, who request­ed anonymi­ty, said that two mem­bers of the jury were not ini­tial­ly cer­tain of Loyd’s guilt, but were per­suad­ed by the rest of the jury to vote to con­vict. ​“There were just some that didn’t believe that he’d com­mit­ted the mur­ders,” she said. Though the jury was split on the ques­tion of the appro­pri­ate sen­tence, she said every­one dis­cussed the matter respectfully. 

Jury fore­man Glenn D. Glasgow said he told the jurors before they began their delib­er­a­tions: ​“This is a deci­sion that you’re going to make that tomor­row, you’re going to look at your­self in the mir­ror and go ​‘I’ve made a right deci­sion, based on my moral or eth­i­cal upbring­ing, this was my deci­sion. As long you can live with that deci­sion,’” he said, “‘that will be the right deci­sion.’” The jury delib­er­at­ed less than an hour before return­ing a life ver­dict. Four jurors opposed a death sen­tence, Glasgow said. Glasgow said the jurors respect­ed each other’s judg­ment and did not ask for expla­na­tions why they vot­ed for or against the death penal­ty. Following the vote, there were no efforts to try to change the minds of any of the jurors.

Loyd’s case entered the nation­al spot­light as the vehi­cle cho­sen by Ayala (pic­tured) to announce her blan­ket rejec­tion of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions. Scott’s response raised ques­tions of racial and polit­i­cal insen­si­tiv­i­ty, as a white Republican Governor stripped the state’s first local­ly elect­ed African-American state attor­ney of author­i­ty to set pol­i­cy on a pun­ish­ment close­ly tied to the his­to­ry of lynch­ing and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in Florida. Scott replaced Ayala, a Democrat, with a white Republican pros­e­cu­tor from neigh­bor­ing Lake County, which was known for the lynch­ing and wrong­ful use of the death penal­ty against the ​“Groveland Four” — four young black men false­ly accused of the rape of a white woman. 

Ayala chal­lenged the governor’s author­i­ty to remove her from the cas­es, but the Florida Supreme Court ulti­mate­ly ruled it was ​“well with­in the bounds of the Governor’s broad author­i­ty.” In May of 2019, Ayala announced that she would not seek a sec­ond term as state attor­ney, say­ing that the court’s deci­sion had made it ​“abun­dant­ly clear to me that death penal­ty law in the state of Florida is in direct con­flict with my view and my vision for the admin­is­tra­tion of justice.”

Prior to 2017, the non-unan­i­mous jury vote in Loyd’s case might still have result­ed in a death sen­tence. At that time, Florida law vest­ed the final sen­tenc­ing deci­sion in the hands of the tri­al judge, who could accept a death-rec­om­men­da­tion made by even a bare major­i­ty of jurors or over­ride a jury rec­om­men­da­tion for life. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that sen­tenc­ing scheme in Hurst v. Florida, writ­ing, ​“The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact nec­es­sary to impose a sen­tence of death. A jury’s mere rec­om­men­da­tion is not enough.” In 2016, the Florida leg­is­la­ture repealed the jury over­ride pro­vi­sion, but still per­mit­ted the death penal­ty if 10 or more jurors rec­om­mend­ed death. After the Florida Supreme Court struck down that law in Perry v. State, the leg­is­la­ture passed the cur­rent statute, which requires a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death before a judge can con­sid­er impos­ing a death sentence.