Entries tagged with “Hurst v. Florida”
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Intellectual Disability
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Lethal Injection
,Jun 13, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 8, 2020
NEWS (6/11/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court applied new cases that retroactively changed the law regarding claims of intellectual disability and the unconstitutionality of death sentences imposed after non-unanimous jury votes for death to uphold the death sentences imposed on Alphonso Cave and Gary…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Sep 21, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of September 14, 2020
NEWS (9/17/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has denied post-conviction relief to Ken Lott, retroactively applying its new rule that a death sentence imposed under the state’s unconstitutional judicial fact-finding statute did not violate Lott’s right to a jury trial because the jury had unanimously found an aggravating circumstance. The court held that Lott’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial in his capital sentencing proceeding…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Sentencing Data
,Nov 29, 2016
Florida Supreme Court Orders Re-Sentencing, Suggesting Hurst May Affect Many Florida Cases
On November 23, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the death sentence imposed by a judge on Richard Franklin after his jury split 9 – 3 in recommending he receive the death penalty for a 2012 murder. “In light of the non-unanimous jury recommendation to impose a death sentence,” the court found that the death sentence violated Franklin’s right to have a unanimous jury determination of all facts necessary to impose a death penalty and that the violation could…
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Representation
,United States Supreme Court
,Oct 09, 2019
Supreme Court Opens 2019 – 2020 Term with Consideration of Death Penalty Cases
The 2019 – 2020 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 7 with the Court declining to review challenges to death-penalty court decisions from a number of states and with the Court hearing argument in a Kansas death-penalty case raising constitutional questions about a defendant’s right to present an insanity…
Policy Issues
United States Supreme Court
,Mar 11, 2020
Timothy Hurst, Whose Case Struck Down Florida’s Death-Penalty Statute, Is Resentenced to Life
Former Florida death-row prisoner Timothy Hurst (pictured), whose case led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Florida’s death-penalty statute in 2016 and spurred the elimination of non-unanimous jury verdicts for death in Florida and Delaware, has been resentenced to life without parole. Hurst was officially removed from Florida’s death row after his capital resentencing jury did not reach a unanimous sentencing recommendation on March 5,…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Sentencing Data
,United States Supreme Court
,Jan 12, 2016
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Florida’s Death Sentencing Scheme
In an 8 – 1 decision in Hurst v. Florida released on January 12, the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s capital sentencing scheme in violation of the 6th Amendment, which guarantees the right to trial by jury. “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion of the Court. The jury and judge in Hurst’s case followed Florida’s statutory sentencing procedure, which…