Opinion ID: 1670351
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: lack of unanimous verdict

Text: As noted above, Apprendi and Ring also stand for the proposition that under the Sixth Amendment, a determination of the existence of aggravating sentencing factors, just like elements of a crime, must be found by a unanimous jury vote. As the Supreme Court expressly noted in Ring, [t]he right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished if it encompassed the factfinding necessary to increase a defendant's sentence by two years, but not the factfinding necessary to put him to death. Ring, 536 U.S. at ___, 122 S.Ct. at 2443. [21] Of course, Florida has long required unanimous verdicts in all criminal cases including capital cases. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.440 states that no jury verdict may be rendered unless all jurors agree. Furthermore, in Jones v. State, 92 So.2d 261 (Fla.1956), this Court held that any interference with the right to a unanimous verdict denies the defendant a fair trial. However, in Florida, the jury's advisory recommendation in a capital case is not statutorily required to be by unanimous vote. The jury's advisory recommendation may be by mere majority vote. This would appear to constitute another visible constitutional flaw in Florida's scheme when the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial is applied as it was in Apprendi and Ring.