[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

May 9



FLORIDA:

Miami judge declares Florida's death-penalty law is unconstitutional


A Miami-Dade judge has ruled that Florida's death penalty is unconstitutional 
because jurors are not required to agree unanimously on execution - a ruling 
that will add to the ongoing legal debate over Florida's capital punishment 
system.

Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch on Monday issued the ruling in the case of Karon 
Gaiter, who is awaiting trial for 1st-degree murder.

Hirsch wrote that Florida's recently enacted "super majority" system - 10 of 12 
juror votes are needed to impose execution as punishment for murder - goes 
against the long-time sanctity of unanimous verdicts in the U.S. justice 
system.

"A decedent cannot be more or less dead. An expectant mother cannot be more or 
less pregnant," he wrote. "And a jury cannot be more or less unanimous. Every 
verdict in every criminal case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of 
some, not of most, but of all jurors - every single one of them."

Hirsch's order comes with Florida's controversial death-penalty law remains 
very much in flux.

In January, in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, the U.S. Supreme Court declared 
the state's death sentencing system unconstitutional because it gave too little 
power to juries. For decades, jurors only issued majority recommendations, with 
judges ultimately imposing the death penalty.

The high court, however, did not rule on the unanimity question. Except for 
Alabama and Florida, all other states that have the death penalty require a 
unanimous jury verdict to impose the death sentence.

Last week, the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Hurst case, 
with critics of the law arguing that all 390 death row inmates should get life 
sentences because they were sentenced under a flawed system.

After the Hurst case was decided in January, Florida lawmakers were forced to 
fix the death-penalty sentencing scheme. Florida's new law requires juries to 
unanimously vote for every reason, known as aggravating factors, that a 
defendant might merit a death sentence. Whether to actually impose the death 
sentence requires 10 of 12 jurors.

"All of these changes inure to the benefit of the defendant," Assistant State 
Attorney Penny Brill wrote in a motion in the Gaiter case earlier this year. 
"These requirements render Florida's system constitutional under the United 
States Supreme Court's precedents."

Judge Hirsch, in his order, said the fixes don't matter.

"Arithmetically the difference between 12 and 10 is slight," Hirsch wrote. "But 
the question before me is not a question of arithmetic. It is a question of 
constitutional law. It is a question of justice."

(source: Miami Herald)






ALABAMA----impending execution

The state of Alabama is asking a federal judge to allow an execution to move 
forward later this week


The state attorney general's office filed documents Monday opposing a bid by 
65-year-old Vernon Madison to postpone his execution, now scheduled for 
Thursday.

Madison's lawyers claim strokes and dementia have left the prisoner incompetent 
to face lethal injection for killing Mobile police officer Julius Schulte in 
1985.

But prosecutors say an expert determined Madison understands the court process 
and the reason he's facing the death sentence despite a stroke. They say 
there's little chance Madison would win an appeal.

Documents show Madison shot Schulte in the head as he sat in his police car 
after responding to a call about a domestic dispute involving Madison.

(source: Associated Press)






MISSOURI----impending execution


Earl Forrest | The Last Interview

see: 
http://www.thesalemnewsonline.com/youtube_181eeb60-10bc-11e6-8df6-07ebf77eb23d.html

(source: youtube.com)