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, 2020.

The resen­tenc­ing marked the third time pros­e­cu­tors were unable to per­suade a cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing jury to unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend that Hurst be sen­tenced to death. Hurst had twice before received the death penal­ty under Florida’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al death-sen­tenc­ing statute – first in 1998 by a jury split 11 – 1 in favor of a death sen­tence and again in 2012 by a jury split 7 – 5 for death. Media reports did not indi­cate the jury vote in his lat­est sentencing trial. 

Hurst’s first death sen­tence was over­turned because of counsel’s inef­fec­tive­ness in fail­ing to inves­ti­gate and present avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in 2015 to review Hurst’s sec­ond death sen­tence, and his case became the vehi­cle for a land­mark deci­sion strik­ing down Florida’s death sen­tenc­ing scheme. In an 8 – 1 rul­ing issued January 12, 2016, the Court declared Florida’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it lim­it­ed Hurst’s sen­tenc­ing jury to an advi­so­ry role and reserved for the judge the author­i­ty to find the facts on which it based his death sen­tence. ​“The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact nec­es­sary to impose a sen­tence of death,” the Court wrote. ​“A jury’s mere rec­om­men­da­tion is not enough.”

The Court’s deci­sion in Hurst v. Florida led the leg­is­la­ture to twice amend its cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing statute. First, in March 2016, the statute was changed to require that jurors unan­i­mous­ly deter­mine any aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances nec­es­sary to impose death, and that at least ten jurors agree to rec­om­mend death before judge could con­sid­er impos­ing a death sen­tence. The Florida Supreme Court then ruled in October 2016 that the jury’s no-longer advi­so­ry penal­ty-phase deci­sion con­sti­tut­ed a ver­dict that, under Florida’s con­sti­tu­tion, must be unan­i­mous. The state court then struck down that new law because it did not require a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion of death. The state leg­is­la­ture then amend­ed the law in March 2017 to require a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death before a judge could con­sid­er impos­ing a death sentence.

In August 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sion to declare its death-sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and that December applied Hurst to all of the state’s death-penal­ty cas­es, clear­ing the state’s death row. With the Florida legislature’s deci­sion, Alabama became the only remain­ing state in the United States to per­mit a judge to base a death sen­tence on a jury’s non-unan­i­mous sentencing recommendation.

The Florida Supreme Court’s appli­ca­tion of the Hurst deci­sion had cre­at­ed con­tin­u­ing con­tro­ver­sy. Initially, the court applied its rul­ing retroac­tive­ly, but only to cas­es in which the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were final­ized after June 24, 2002, the date on which the U.S. Supreme Court decid­ed Ring v. Arizona. Ring held that cap­i­tal defen­dants are ​“enti­tled to a jury deter­mi­na­tion of any fact on which the leg­is­la­ture con­di­tions an increase in their max­i­mum pun­ish­ment” — that is, any facts nec­es­sary for the impo­si­tion of a death sentence.

As of January 23, 2020, 147 Florida death-row pris­on­ers had been grant­ed resen­tenc­ings under Hurst, although an even larg­er num­ber of uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly imposed death sen­tences that had com­plet­ed their ini­tial appeals before Ring were per­mit­ted to stand. Then, on January 23, the state court reversed course, ​“reced­ed” from its deci­sion in Hurst, and rescind­ed its jury una­nim­i­ty require­ment. The court’s rul­ing in State v. Poole rein­stat­ed a 2011 death sen­tence in which the jury had vot­ed 11 – 1 for death, and sig­naled the court’s will­ing­ness to reverse pri­or rul­ings that had grant­ed death-row pris­on­ers new sentencing hearings. 

The court’s deci­sion in Poole was the direct prod­uct of polit­i­cal changes in the com­po­si­tion of the state court. In 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced four retir­ing lib­er­al and mod­er­ate judges with a slate of uni­form­ly arch-con­ser­v­a­tive jurists. In Poole, the new­ly com­posed court dis­tin­guished between aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances — facts that make a defen­dant ​“eli­gi­ble” to be sen­tenced to death — which must be found by the jury, and the ​“selec­tion” of the ulti­mate sen­tence after the weigh­ing of aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances. The lat­ter, the court said, involved judg­ments of mer­cy that could not be con­sid­ered a fac­tu­al deter­mi­na­tion and did not require a unan­i­mous jury vote.