[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 5



FLORIDA:

Florida Supreme Court hears argument in landmark death penalty case


On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments in a Pensacola murder 
case that in January prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Florida's death 
penalty statute unconstitutional. An attorney for murderer Timothy Hurst asked 
the state's high court to direct a trial judge to resentence the defendant to 
life in prison. Assistant State Attorney General Carine Mitz asked it to rule 
that despite the high court ruling, Hurst still should be put to death.

During a 40-minute session Thursday, justices on the Florida Supreme Court 
peppered attorneys with questions about what to do with Timothy Lee Hurst, a 
death row inmate who murdered his boss at a Pensacola Popeye's fried chicken 
restaurant in 1998.

It's their job to fix Florida's broken death penalty system.

In January, after studying what happened at Hurst's trial, the U.S. Supreme 
Court declared the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional.

It violated an inmate's right to a trial by jury, the high court wrote, because 
in Florida a judge - not a jury - imposed sentence.

On Thursday, an attorney for Hurst asked the court to spare his client. David 
A. Davis cited a 1972 Florida law that says if the death penalty is found to be 
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, every Florida inmate with a death 
sentence must have it commuted to life."

"This court - I hate to say it's an easy job, but it's a straightforward one," 
Davis said.

Earlier in the week some of the state's most powerful attorneys, including 
three former Florida Supreme Court justices, filed paperwork with the Florida 
Supreme Court, asking it to commute the sentences of all 390 inmates on death 
row to life in prison.

They cited that same 1972 law.

But Assistant Florida Attorney General Carine Mitz argued that that law does 
not apply because only a portion of the state's sentencing statute was found to 
be invalid.

She urged the court to leave Hurst's death sentence unchanged. He was not 
harmed, she said, by the error pointed out by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It was not clear Thursday what the court would do.

Florida has halted executions since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 
decision on Jan. 12.

Hurst was convicted of murdering Popeye's assistant manager Cynthia Harrison. 
He had stabbed or slashed her 60 times with a box cutter during a robbery.

Mitz argued that had a jury rather than a judge made the final decision at his 
trial, Hurst still would have been given the death penalty.

A new law

The Florida Legislature quickly rewrote the death penalty statute, and on March 
7 Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law. Now, before the death penalty can be 
imposed, at least 10 jurors must vote for it.

In addition all 12 must identify and agree on at least 1 "aggravating factor" 
that explains why the inmate deserves to be put to death, for example, that the 
killing was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel.

Under the old law jurors voted on whether to recommend a sentence of life or 
death, and a majority ruled. A judge then made the final decision.

Death penalty experts agree that the death penalty is supposed to be reserved 
for a narrow group of killers, the worst of the worst.

On Thursday Florida Supreme Court Justices Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince 
suggested that the new state law is flawed because it may fail to do that. It 
allows jurors to recommend death based on a single aggravating factor.

"If only one aggravator is, in this state, all that is needed to put someone to 
death, we have a serious Eighth Amendment problem," Pariente said.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

Among the things that qualify as aggravating factors: if the victim is elderly, 
if the defendant is on felony probation, if the killing is committed during a 
burglary.

Now anyone convicted of killing an elderly person could be put to death, 
Pariente said.

"If we want a death penalty in Florida, we need it to be constitutional," 
Pariente said.

It's not clear when the Florida Supreme Court will render its ruling.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)