Death penalty reform advocates on Thursday asked the Florida Supreme Court to downgrade the sentences of death row inmates to life imprisonment, arguing a change in the state's death penalty sentencing law should apply retroactively.
- Change prompted by U.S. Supreme Court striking down Florida judges' authority to hand down death sentences
- 390 current death row inmates were sentenced under the struck-down provision
The change was prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a provision that gave judges, not juries, the authority to hand down death sentences. The Florida Legislature this year modified the law to comply with the ruling, but the question of how to handle the 390 death row inmates sentenced under the now-unconstitutional provision has fallen to the state's high court to answer.
"If you're going to impose the death penalty, you've got to follow this procedure," said David Davis, an attorney for Timothy Hurst, the death row inmate who challenged the sentencing law and is now seeking life imprisonment. "If you don't follow this procedure, life is the correct sentence. So, you've got to have both: the punishment and also the method of imposing that punishment."
During Thursday's oral arguments, lawyers for Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican who opposes clearing out death row, told the justices laws that apply at the time a sentence is rendered should be the standard by which that sentence is judged.
"By virtue of the old death penalty statute, at the time Timothy Hurst killed Ms. Harrison, he was aware that he could be punished by death," said Assistant Attorney General Carine Mitz.
Several of the justices on the court's liberal wing, however, appeared deeply skeptical that allowing the death sentences to stand would be constitutional. At the very least, they suggested, new sentencing trials should be held using the modified law.
"Without that, you've got an Eighth Amendment problem," said Justice Barbara Pariente.