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Death sentence flaws
The Florida Supreme Court has unanimously rejected challenges by two death row prisoners to Florida's capital punishment sentencing scheme, clearing the way for their executions. But in doing so, five of seven justices pointed out, in separate concurring opinions, that there are serious flaws in the way the state currently imposes death sentences. The court seemed to be warning that, when the right case comes along, some change will be in order. The Legislature should carefully read the decisions in the petitions of Linroy Bottoson and Amos Lee King, two inmates on death row for separate murders (King was scheduled for execution at 6 p.m. Monday, but at the last minute Gov. Jeb Bush granted a stay to allow new DNA tests on the evidence in his 1977 trial). In these two cases, the court is providing a road map as to how the state's death penalty statutes will need to change in order to meet new constitutional standards recently articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court. Currently, Florida gives the trial judge the ultimate authority to impose a death sentence. At the first phase of the trial, a jury determines the defendant's guilt or innocence. During the second phase, jurors are asked to make an advisory recommendation to the judge on whether the defendant should receive the death penalty or life in prison. While the jury weighs the aggravating and mitigating factors in each case, it does not make any factual findings to provide a basis for its sentencing recommendation. After jurors vote by majority rule, the matter is turned over to the judge for a final determination. Under Florida law, judges must independently review the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and, in writing, lay out any conditions that justify a death sentence. The judge's discretion is so sweeping, he or she is free to impose death even when the jury unanimously recommends a life sentence. However, in June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Timothy Ring, a death row inmate in Arizona, had his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial violated when a judge, without a jury's input, found aggravating factors and sentenced him to death. The court said in Ring vs. Arizona that any facts leading to a sentence of death must be established by the jury. Justice Antonin Scalia, in a concurring opinion, stated flatly that juries must determine aggravating factors, as they would for any essential element of the crime during the guilt phase. This means their findings must be unanimous and established beyond a reasonable doubt. Florida's sentencing process falls far short of this mark. If this is true, then why didn't King and Bottoson qualify for new sentencing? Essentially, the Florida Supreme Court deferred to the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court. The high federal court had the King and Bottoson petitions before it while considering the Ring case, but ultimately refused to intervene in their pending executions. But the issue is far from resolved. Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead warned his colleagues that the "safe harbor" they chose to travel in may not prove to be that safe. In other words, if the Legislature doesn't act to correct the system's flaws, the court may soon revisit the impact of the Ring decision on the state's capital punishment statutes, and he sees much rubble along the way.
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