The Courts Struck Down Florida’s Death-Sentencing Law in 2016. What’s Happened Since?

Discussions With DPI

In 2016, both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death-sen­tenc­ing statute. Since then, the Florida courts and leg­is­la­ture have been fig­ur­ing out how to apply those deci­sions to the near­ly 400 con­demned pris­on­ers on the state’s death row. Executive Director Robert Dunham inter­views Karen Gottlieb, the Co-Director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University, who dis­cuss­es the court cas­es and what has hap­pened in Florida as a result, includ­ing explain­ing how the deci­sion has been inter­pret­ed to apply to only half of the pris­on­ers who were uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death under the old law.