Supreme Court partially reverses its 2016 opinion on death penalties
Florida death penalty juries must be unanimous only in finding “the existence of a statutory aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt,” and not in recommending the death penalty, according to the Florida Supreme Court.
In partially overturning its own ruling in Hurst v. State, 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016), the court on January 23 also said juries are not required to determine whether aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors in death penalty cases.
The 4-1 decision in Florida v. Poole, Case No. SC18-245, produced a dissent from Justice Jorge Labarga, who was part of the majority in Hurst.
“Sadly, this Court has retreated from the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions in the United States that require a unanimous jury recommendation of death. In so doing, this Court has taken a giant step backward and removed a significant safeguard for the just application of the death penalty in Florida,” Labarga wrote.
The decision will not immediately affect death penalty cases in Florida. The Legislature, reacting to the 2016 opinion, passed a state law that requires juries to unanimously agree to impose the death penalty, find the existence of statutory aggravating circumstances, and that those aggravating circumstances outweigh any mitigating factors. The new ruling gives the Legislature room to back off from the first and last of those requirements.
Prior to that change and the Hurst case, juries gave advisory opinions, which did not have to be unanimous, and the judge made the final decision.
The decision could also affect the scores of death row inmates who have sought to have their sentences reviewed under Hurst, which is how the Supreme Court revisited the issue. Mark Anthony Poole was seeking a review of his death sentence in a 2001 murder (the Florida Supreme Court had upheld the sentence in 2014) and a trial judge, citing Hurst, ordered a new penalty phase proceeding.
Poole also filed a cross appeal claiming his counsel’s concession of guilt in non-homicide charges related to the crime violated the Sixth Amendment and was a structural error. The court rejected that before getting to the Hurst issues.
The Hurst ruling came after the U.S. Supreme Court considered that case, Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016).
According to the Poole majority per curiam opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to consider an Eighth Amendment challenge, that it was the judge and not the jury that imposed Poole’s death penalty, and a Sixth Amendment challenge, that it was wrong for the judge alone to determine the aggravating factors that made a defendant death-penalty eligible.
The Hurst Court, though, granted certiorari and addressed only, the Sixth Amendment issues in its 8-1 opinion, although in a concurring opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said Florida violated the Eighth Amendment “because it assigns to the judge the power to impose the death penalty.”
The Poole opinion said when Hurst returned to Florida from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida court should have addressed only its specific finding that judges alone do not have the power to determine the aggravating factors justifying a death penalty.
Instead, the opinion said, the 2016 court reached a broader conclusion requiring unanimous jury consent on finding aggravating factors proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that those factors are sufficient to impose the death penalty and in recommending the death penalty.
The Poole majority said only that first factor is required by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court said its 2016 opinion failed to distinguish that F.S. §921.141(3) has two sections, (a) and (b). The first concerns determining aggravating factors that make a defendant eligible for the death penalty and the second involves weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors.
Juries, the justices said, aren’t required for that second activity, which involves judgment and balancing various factors.
“This Court clearly erred in Hurst v. State by requiring that the jury make any finding beyond the section 921.141(3)(a) eligibility finding of one or more statutory aggravating circumstances. Neither Hurst v. Florida, nor the Sixth or Eighth Amendment, nor the Florida Constitution mandates that the jury make the section 941.121(3)(b) selection finding or that the jury recommend a sentence of death,” the opinion said.
The opinion also said it is the finding of the mitigating factors — not the weighing of them against mitigating factors — that exposes the defendant to the death penalty, and, hence, jury input on the latter is not constitutionally required.
On unanimous jury agreement, the opinion said the U.S. Supreme Court has not required that in several past cases.
“As we have explained, the Supreme Court in Spaziano [v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 457 (1984)] upheld the constitutionality under the Sixth Amendment of a Florida judge imposing a death sentence even in the face of a jury recommendation of life — a jury override. It necessarily follows that the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted in Spaziano, does not require any jury recommendation of death, much less a unanimous one. And as we have also explained, the Court in Hurst v. Florida overruled Spaziano only to the extent it allows a judge, rather than a jury, to find a necessary aggravating circumstance. See Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. at 624.”
The opinion also said, “[L]est there be any doubt, we hold that our state constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, article I, section 17, does not require a unanimous jury recommendation — or any jury recommendation — before a death sentence can be imposed. The text of our constitution requires us to construe the state cruel and unusual punishment provision in conformity with decisions of the Supreme Court interpreting the Eighth Amendment. Binding Supreme Court precedent in Spaziano holds that the Eighth Amendment does not require a jury’s favorable recommendation before a death penalty can be imposed….Therefore, the same is true of article I, section 17.”
Labarga noted that if the Florida Legislature changes its law to conform with the new opinion, it will join Alabama as the only one of the 29 states, as well as the federal government, that do not require a unanimous jury consent to impose the death penalty.
He also wrote that Florida for more than 100 years has required jury unanimity in criminal jury verdicts.
“This settled law compelled this Court’s conclusion in Hurst v. State that the unanimity requirement applied not only to the jury’s duty to determine whether to convict the defendant, but upon conviction, to the jury’s duty to determine whether the defendant should receive the death penalty,” Labarga argued. “Given Florida’s long history of requiring unanimous jury verdicts, it defies reason to require unanimous juries for the conviction of a capital offense but to then reduce the jury’s collective obligation when determining whether the defendant’s life should be taken as punishment for that offense.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Alan Lawson, said Florida’s system has sufficient safeguards when imposing the death penalty and additional protections in the appellate process.
“I fully agree with the majority’s determination that we should partially recede from Hurst v. State because the State and those whose interests are represented by the State in this case, including the victims and their families, relied heavily on the significant body of precedent upholding as constitutional the relevant statutory procedures invalidated in Hurst v. State…; because the State and society’s interests in the finality of Poole’s sentence are equally strong…; and, because Poole’s reliance interest on the erroneous Hurst v. State precedent is nonexistent [citations omitted].” Lawson wrote.
Chief Justice Charles Canady, Justice Ricky Polston, Lawson, and Justice Carlos Muñiz concurred in the per curiam majority opinion. Canady and Polston dissented from the court’s 2016 Hurst opinion.
