Opinion ID: 1882486
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 32

Heading: florida's capital, sentencing statute is unconstitutional on its face and as applied in this case because it fails to prevent the arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty, and it violates the constitutional guarantees of due process and prohibiting unusual punishment.

Text: The defendant alleges that the capital sentencing scheme constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and it is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has held that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment. Provenzano v. State, 739 So.2d 1150 (Fla.1999); Jones v. State, 748 So.2d 1012 (Fla.1999). He also alleges that the statute does not adequately define the terms outweigh, sufficient aggravating circumstances, individual aggravating circumstances and has vague jury instructions. Many of these claims have previously been raised and/or are meritless. Additionally, the issue of vagueness on some of the jury instructions was addressed by the Supreme Court in Knight v. State, where it summarily rejected the defendant's claim of vagueness as to the HAC construction. Knight v. State, 746 So.2d 423, n. 7 claim XIII. All issues raised in this claim are procedurally barred as they could have and should have been raised on appeal. Byrd v. State, 597 So.2d 252 (Fla.1992). This claim also lacks merit and has been rejected by the Florida Supreme Court numerous times. Johnson v. State, 660 So.2d 637, 647-48 (Fla.1995); Wournos[Wuornos] v. State, 644 So.2d 1012, 1020 (Fla.1994).