TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, the Florida Supreme Court issued its decisions in Jackson v. Florida and Hunt v. Florida, the first pair of cases to review Florida’s 2023 statute restoring non-unanimous death sentences, this time based on as little as an 8–4 jury recommendation, despite the United States Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Hurst v. Florida (finding Florida’s nearly identical non-unanimous death sentencing statute unconstitutional).
Though differently situated, both cases demonstrate the breadth of Florida’s sweeping rollback of unanimity.
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Michael Jackson was originally sentenced to death in 2007 by an 8–4 jury vote. Mr. Jackson’s case was remanded for resentencing following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down Florida’s non-unanimity law, but on the eve of his resentencing, the state passed the 2023 statute reinstating non-unanimity. The State was once again permitted to seek death without a unanimous jury.
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Michael Hunt, by contrast, was arrested during the seven-year period in which Florida law required unanimity for death recommendations. Yet, because his penalty phase occurred after the 2023 statute was enacted, he too was subjected to the revived non-unanimous standard. Had his trial taken place earlier in 2023, the identical verdict would have resulted in a life sentence.
Together, these cases presented the Court with a critical opportunity to evaluate Florida’s divergence from the constitutional framework that has governed capital sentencing nationwide for nearly a decade. Non-unanimous jury sentencing, permitted only in Florida and Alabama, is far more than a procedural oddity. It is a system with a documented history of error. 97% of Florida’s 30 death row exonerees were sentenced by non-unanimous juries, underscoring the profound unreliability of any process that departs from the jury unanimity required in every other criminal proceeding.
“The State of Florida had the opportunity to correct its error now by returning to the constitutional standard of requiring unanimity in all capital sentencing decisions,” says Maria DeLiberato, Esq., Legal and Policy Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP).
“Instead, the Court’s decisions keep Florida an outlier and postpone the inevitable review and reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court. This will create decades of uncertainty and require new sentencing trials at untold financial and emotional costs.”
Legal counsel for both Jackson and Hunt plan to seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court. These cases are poised to become central vehicles in the next national examination of Florida’s capital sentencing framework.
FADP urges the restoration of unanimity and the creation of a capital system rooted in fairness, reliability, and constitutional integrity.
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FADP is a Florida-based, state-wide organization of individuals and groups working together to end the death penalty in Florida. Our network includes dozens of state and local groups and thousands of individual Floridians, including murder victims’ family members and other survivors of violent crime, law enforcement professionals, families of the incarcerated, and death row exonerees.