Entries tagged with “Jonathan Lawrence”
Issues
Executions Overview
,Nov 02, 2020
Florida Supreme Court Abandons 50-Year-Old Proportionality Safeguard for Capital Defendants
In a continuing diminution of procedural safeguards in capital cases, the Florida Supreme Court has ended its long-standing practice of independently reviewing death penalty cases on appeal to ensure that they are not disproportionate to sentences imposed in similar cases. The practice, known as comparative proportionality review, was initiated by the court a half-century ago after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all existing U.S. death penalty statutes in Furman v. Georgia because of the…
Issues
Conditions on Death Row
,Nov 02, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 26, 2020
NEWS (10/30/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Jonathan Lawrence in an opinion that removed yet another appellate safeguard for the state’s death-row prisoners. In the case, the new far-right majority of the court ended the 50-year-old practice of conducting an independent proportionality review of a death sentence to determine whether the verdict was disproportional to the sentences imposed in other capital cases. The Florida Supreme Court…