Opinion ID: 6218017
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sufficiency of Aggravating Factors

Text: McKenzie argues that his death sentence is invalid because the jury did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors were sufficient to impose the death penalty. He contends that for a death sentence to be valid, the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors were sufficient to impose the death penalty and that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances. However, these jury determinations are “not subject to the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of proof.” Newberry v. State, 288 So. 3d 1040, 1047 (Fla. 2019); see also Craft v. State, 312 So. 3d 45, 57 (Fla. 2020); Rogers v. State, 285 So. 3d 872, 885-86 (Fla. 2019). We decline McKenzie’s invitation to revisit what has been settled: only the existence of a statutory aggravating factor must be found beyond a reasonable doubt. See Poole, 297 So. 3d at 505. See also McKinney v. Arizona, 140 S. Ct. 702, 707-08 (2020). McKenzie also argues that the term “sufficient” requires a qualitative, not a numerical definition, and that the failure to define “sufficient” for the jury constituted fundamental error. However, we expressly rejected the qualitative versus numerical argument in - 16 - Poole: “Poole’s suggestion that ‘sufficient’ implies a qualitative assessment of the aggravator—as opposed simply to finding that an aggravator exists—is unpersuasive and contrary to this [Court’s] decades-old precedent.” Poole, 297 So. 3d at 502.