Source: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/category/categories/states/florida?page=3
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 17:58:38+00:00

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The Florida Supreme Court has upheld Governor Rick Scott’s (pictured, left) removal of Orange and Osceola County State Attorney Aramis Ayala (pictured, right) as prosecutor in more than two dozen murder cases because of her official policy not to seek to seek the death penalty. Over two dissents, the seven-member Court held that Scott had acted “well within the bounds of the Governor’s broad authority” when he replaced Ayala with Lake County State Attorney and death-penalty proponent Brad King in cases that could be eligible for the death penalty under Florida law. On March 16, Ayala—the first African American elected as a Florida state attorney—announced that her office would not pursue the death penalty in any homicide cases, saying the use of capital punishment was “not in the best interests of this community or in the best interests of justice." That day, Governor Scott issued an executive order removing her from the case of Markeith Loyd, charged in the killing of an Orlando police officer, and appointing King to prosecute the case. He has since issued executive orders removing Ayala and appointing King in at least 26 other murder cases. Against a backdrop of racial discrimination, Ayala—supported by the Florida Legislative Black Caucus and a group of lawyers, legal experts, and retired judges—argued that Scott’s action was a power grab that threatened the autonomy of locally elected prosecutors to exercise their discretion in charging and sentencing practices. The court flatly rejected that argument, saying that “adopting a blanket policy against the imposition of the death penalty is in effect refusing to exercise discretion and tantamount to a functional veto” of Florida’s death-penalty law. The two women on the court, Justice Barbara Pariente, joined by Justice Peggy A. Quince, dissented. Justice Pariente wrote: “This case is about the independence of duly elected State Attorneys to make lawful decisions within their respective jurisdictions as to sentencing and allocation of their offices’ resources, free from interference by a Governor who disagrees with their decisions.” Ayala’s decision “not seek a sentence that produces years of appeals and endless constitutional challenges and implicates decades of significant jurisprudential developments,” she wrote “was well within the scheme created by the Legislature and within the scope of decisions State Attorneys make every day on how to allocate their offices’ limited resources.” Governor Scott hailed the decision as “a great victory.” Shortly afterwards, Ayala issued a statement saying she respects the ruling and announcing the formation of a death penalty review panel that will evaluate first-degree murder cases and recommend whether to seek the death penalty. “With implementation of this Panel,” the statement said, “it is my expectation that going forward all first-degree murder cases that occur in my jurisdiction will remain in my office and be evaluated and prosecuted accordingly."
In a decision that could have broad impact on the state's death row, the Florida Supreme Court on August 10 upheld the death sentence imposed on James Hitchcock, despite his having been unconstitutionally sentenced to death. In a 6-1 ruling, the court said it would not enforce its 2016 ruling in Hurst v. State—which declared unconstitutional any death sentence imposed after one or more sentencing jurors had voted that a life sentence was the appropriate punishment—in cases that had completed the direct appeal process before June 2002. That date is when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ring v. Arizona that a capital defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to have the jury determine all facts necessary for the state to impose a death penalty. But the Florida courts did not apply Ring to death-penalty cases in the state until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death-penalty statute in 2016. At that time, in Hurst v. Florida, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reiterating that "[t]he Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death." When Hurst's case returned to the Florida Supreme Court later that year, the state court ruled that non-unanimous jury verdicts were unconstitutional. However, the court then ruled in an appeal brought by Mark Asay—scheduled to be executed August 24—that it would not apply Hurst to cases that pre-dated Ring. Hitchcock and other Florida death-row prisoners pressed a number of other constitutional arguments, including that death sentences imposed after non-unanimous jury votes are unreliable, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and that the court's bright-line cutoff for enforcing Hurst was unconstitutionally arbitrary, violating due rocess and the right to equal protection of the law. The Hitchcock court declined to consider those arguments, dismissing them as "nothing more than arguments that Hurst v. State should be applied retroactively to [Hitchcock's] sentence." Hitchcock's case was closely watched because the Florida courts had frozen the briefing schedules for 77 similarly situated death-row prisoners who also were arguing that Hurst should be enforced in their cases. Justice Barbara J. Pariente dissented, writing, "[r]eliability is the linchpin of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, and a death sentence imposed without a unanimous jury verdict for death is inherently unreliable." She noted that Hitchcock, who was twenty years old at the time of his crime, has had four different unconstitutional death sentences since he was first tried in 1977, with the U.S. Supreme Court twice overturning the death penalty in his case. She further noted that four Florida Supreme Court justices had written that his death sentence was disproportionate and that he should be resentenced to life. “To deny Hitchcock relief when other similarly situated defendants have been granted relief amounts to a denial of due process,” she wrote.
Arizona will soon end its policy of automatically and indefinitely incarcerating death-row prisoners in solitary confinement, joining a growing number of states to ease draconian conditions on their state death rows. Arizona's action is part of a settlement of a federal lawsuit filed against the Department of Corrections (DOC) by death-row prisoner Scott Nordstrom (pictured), which argued that the state's death-row conditions were unconstitutionally harsh. Nordstrom's attorney, Sam Kooistra, said that the change in housing does not mean "softer treament" for condemned prisoners, but rather that they "get treated more like non-death sentence inmates do" by being afforded an individualized housing assessment based upon their conduct in prison and the risk they pose to others. 70% of the approximately 2,900 prisoners on death row in the U.S. are automatically held alone in their cells for more than 20 hours per day, with nearly two-thirds held in solitary confinement more than 22 hours per day, according to a survey of state corrections officials by The Marshall Project. Other states such as California, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia—prompted by court challenges over death-row conditions—have already begun to allow death-sentenced prisoners more time out of their cells and, in some cases, to eat meals and exercise with other inmates, have contact visits with family members, and hold prison jobs. In February, a federal appeals court declared unconstitutional Pennsylvania's long-standing practice of automatically keeping prisoners whose death sentences had been overturned in solitary confinement—sometimes for years—until they had completed retrial or resentencing proceedings and received a lesser sentence. Nine condemned prisoners in Florida have also filed suit on behalf of the more than 350 prisoners currently held on the state's death row, which asks the court to prohibit prisoners from being held in solitary confinement for indefinite duration and without a case-specific justification. Currently, Florida holds death-sentenced prisoners in solitary confinement up to 23 hours every day. Three prisoners on Louisiana's death row have filed filed a federal class action lawsuit charging that their isolation at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola amounts to a “severe denial of human fundamental needs.” Although prison officials have begun allowing death-sentenced prisoners four hours out of their cell per day, as well as some educational programming and activities with other prisoners, Betsy Ginsberg—one of the Angola prisoners’ lawyers—said the class-action lawsuit will continue to ensure that the recent changes are “constitutionally adequate, properly implemented, and permanent.” These developments in death-row conditions come in the midst of a national rethinking of the use of solitary confinement, which has come under fire as unnecessarily, psychologically debilitating, cruel, and expensive.
The number of prisoners on Florida's death row is now lower than it was on June 30, 2005, as the pace of death sentencing slows and courts reverse the unconstitutional non-unanimous death sentences by which numerous capital defendants had been condemned. Applying the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in Hurst v. Florida and subsequent Florida Supreme Court decisions in Hurst v. State and Perry v. State, state courts declared unconstitutional Florida's practice of permitting trial judges to impose death sentences after sentencing juries had not reached a unanimous agreement that death was the appropriate punishment. As a result, death sentences have been vacated in nearly 100 cases, and additional cases are working their way through Florida's court system. So far this year, 15 people have been removed from Florida's death row, and a 16th died after having his death sentence vacated under Hurst, while being transfered to a court hearing. The declining population on death row is not being replaced with new death sentences; the state's last death sentence was handed down in June 2016 and more than 3/4ths of death sentences imposed in the previous five years had involved non-unanimous jury votes for death. As a result, the number of prisoners housed on Florida's death row has fallen from 383 at the beginning of 2017, to 367—slightly lower than the 369 people who were on death row in 2005. Even more prisoners are expected to be removed from death row, as many of those whose death sentences have been invalidated are resentenced to life. (The Department of Corrections death-row roster only removes a prisoner from its list if the prisoner dies, receives clemency, is exonerated, or is resentenced to something other than death.) A DPIC review of Florida capital cases indicates that, through July 13, Florida courts have issued decisions involving Hurst in at least 119 cases. Those decisions have resulted in the vacation of 99 death sentences. To date, the counties most affected by the Hurst rulings have been: Duval (15 sentences); Orange (9 sentences); and Broward (9 sentences). In Duval County, 14 of the 15 death sentences reviewed (93.33%) have been vacated; in Orange County, all 9 death sentences reviewed have been vacated; and in Broward county, 7 of the 9 death sentences reviewed (77.78%) have been vacated. DPIC, in conjunction with researcher and professor Michael Radelet, has also identified at least 149 prisoners who are expected to obtain relief under the Florida court's current interpretation of Hurst, and is tracking what happens to those cases on resentencing. Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan said the resentencing hearings will present difficulties for the state's legal system: “That’s not an easy thing to go back and dig up all of this evidence and especially to dig up all the witnesses,” for a new sentencing hearing. “We have been very, very negligent in the state of Florida in handling these types of cases,” he said.

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