Mitch Perry
A poll released Tuesday indicates that 73 percent of Florida voters support a requirement that juries render a unanimous decision to apply the death penalty. Of those voters, 57 percent “strongly support” that stipulation.
The survey by Public Policy Polling also shows that 38 percent would prefer a life prison sentence for a person convicted in a capital case. That would come with no possibility of parole and with a requirement to work in prison and pay restitution. About the same number, 35 percent, held the opposite view, preferring that the death penalty be preserved.
An additional 15 percent preferred life in prison with no possibility of parole, but without the work and restitution requirements. Nine percent said they preferred life in prison with a possibility of parole in 40 years.
The survey comes a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death penalty sentencing statute, saying it did not give jurors a sufficient role in deciding whether defendants should be put to death. Florida has been the only state in the nation to permit someone to be sentenced to death other than through a unanimous determination by the jury.
On Monday, a bill that would require a unanimous verdict from the jury to recommend the death penalty was approved in a committee in the Legislature.
The Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee passed its version of a bill (SB 7068) that would revise Florida’s sentencing process for the death penalty. It differs from a companion bill in the House, which would require only nine jurors. Current Florida law requires a majority of seven jurors to recommend the death penalty to a judge.
The survey of 879 Florida voters was conducted this past Wednesday and Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of +/-3.1%. It was commissioned by the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University’s College of Law.
