Melissa Ross
Just as a closely watched U.S. Supreme Court case may strike down Florida’s death penalty sentencing laws, ACLU staff attorney Adam Tebrugge of Bradenton is discussing the death penalty Monday night in St. Augustine at an event sponsored in part by Amnesty International.
The high court is reviewing what the New York Times calls Florida’s “idiosyncratic capital sentencing system,” questioning whether it gives enough authority to jurors.
As former solicitor general Seth Waxman argued before the court last month in examining the case Hurst v Florida, Florida is the only state in the union where juries have a circumscribed role in death-penalty cases.
“Under Florida law,” he said, “Timothy Hurst will go to his death despite the fact that a judge, not a jury, made the factual finding that rendered him eligible for death.” This arrangement holds “in Florida and Florida alone.”
The Sunshine State is also the only one where juries need only a 7-5 vote to when sentence criminals to death; “in all other states, it’s unanimous,” Waxman said. “There is no other state that permits anyone to be sentenced for death other than by unanimous determination by the jury. And the state of Florida requires unanimity for shoplifting, just not for death.”
Use of the death penalty is on the wane nationally, with the exception of a few states like Florida, amid legal challenges in state and federal courts and shifting public opinion. Florida ranks third behind Texas and Missouri in the number of executions carried out.
Apart from those three states, there were only seven other executions in the country last year.
On the other hand, Tallahassee’s conservative leadership argues the death penalty should remain, as it is the appropriate form of justice for heinous murders.
“If you don’t have the death penalty, it’s a free murder,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach. “I’m for no free murders, and that’s why I think Florida is right for bucking the national trend of watering down the death penalty.”
Meanwhile, A Conversation with Adam Tebrugge is set for November 16th in St. Augustine Beach.
Tebrugge will also be on hand as a featured speaker for Operation Reform, a bipartisan summit taking place next week in Jacksonville looking at criminal justice reform.
