Resentencing Status of Florida Prisoners Sentenced to Die by Non-Unanimous Juries

This list tracks known Florida death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers eli­gi­ble for relief under Hurst v. Florida (2016) because 1) their jury rec­om­men­da­tions for death were not unan­i­mous, and 2) their con­vic­tions became final after Ring v. Arizona (2002), which estab­lished that juries must find each aggra­vat­ing fac­tor nec­es­sary to impose death. The ini­tial list was gen­er­at­ed by Michael Radelet, Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and report­ed the sta­tus of the cas­es as of December 31, 2016. With the assis­tance of Hannah Gorman, research schol­ar and death penal­ty law clin­i­cal instruc­tor at the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University’s College of Law, as well as attor­ney and researcher Melanie Kalmanson of Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty, DPIC has updat­ed the list through August 8, 2024.

DPIC has deter­mined at least 157 pris­on­ers on Florida’s death row meet these twin cri­te­ria, of whom at least 145 (or 92%) obtained Hurst relief — which means that they are enti­tled to resen­tenc­ing — and two have been exon­er­at­ed. After Florida’s new law went into effect on April 20, 2023, end­ing the prac­tice of unan­i­mous death sen­tences and autho­riz­ing death by a jury vote of 8 – 4, judges began apply­ing the law incon­sis­tent­ly to Hurst resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings. This list now includes infor­ma­tion on whether the 8 – 4 law has been applied to any resen­tenc­ing occur­ring after the effec­tive date of the leg­is­la­tion, and whether the state waived death in those cas­es. We include the date of sen­tenc­ing where available. 

Please let us know if you are aware of addi­tion­al Florida cas­es that should be includ­ed on the list below, or if the sta­tus of those on the list should be updat­ed to reflect a new sen­tenc­ing dis­po­si­tion (i.e., resen­tenced to life or resen­tenced to death).

* Aguirre’s con­vic­tion was vacat­ed based on new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence, not based on issues relat­ed to Hurst.

** Bright’s death sen­tence was over­turned pri­or to the Hurst deci­sion for inef­fec­tive­ness of penalty-phase counsel.

*** Death sen­tence over­turned on issues unre­lat­ed to the Hurst deci­sion.

**** The Florida Supreme Court found the evi­dence insuf­fi­cient to con­vict Wright. Because it acquit­ted him of mur­der, the court did not need to address the Hurst vio­la­tion in his case.

For more back­ground on the Florida leg­isla­tive and court actions relat­ed to the jury una­nim­i­ty issue, see Hurst v. Florida Background.

To track devel­op­ments in Florida death-row appeals that have been decid­ed in light of the state and fed­er­al Hurst deci­sions, see this chart.