{"id":10781,"date":"2016-01-12T13:10:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T18:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=10781"},"modified":"2016-01-12T13:11:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T18:11:01","slug":"u-s-supreme-court-strikes-down-floridas-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=10781","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Florida&#8217;s Death Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-566 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/SupremeCourtBuilding.jpg\" alt=\"SupremeCourtBuilding\" width=\"270\" height=\"178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/SupremeCourtBuilding.jpg 1300w, https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/SupremeCourtBuilding-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/SupremeCourtBuilding-1024x675.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/>Today, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a ruling of 8-1, struck down Florida&#8217;s death penalty system, saying in their majority opinion that Florida judges play too great a role in sentencing while juries can only give recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>The court majority decided in <em>Hurst v. Florida<\/em> that, &#8220;The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant&#8217;s right to an impartial jury.\u00a0 This right required Florida to base Timothy Hurst&#8217;s death sentence on a jury&#8217;s verdict, not a judge&#8217;s fact finding.\u00a0 Florida&#8217;s sentencing scheme, which required the judge alone to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance, is therefore unconstitutional.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In 1998, Timothy Lee Hurst was convicted of first-degree murder for tying up and stabbing to death his boss, Pensacola restaurant manager Cynthia Harrison.\u00a0 A state jury voted 7-5 in favor of the death penalty.\u00a0 The judge found independent cause and sentenced him to death.<\/p>\n<p>With the new legislative session beginning today, lawmakers will be working to craft new legislation that will bring Florida&#8217;s death penalty back online.\u00a0 Read the Supreme Court decisions here:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/15pdf\/14-7505_5ie6.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Hurst v. Florida<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It will remain to be seen how many of the current 390 Florida death row inmates will file appeals based upon this SCOTUS ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Randall<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a ruling of 8-1, struck down Florida&#8217;s death penalty system, saying in their majority opinion that Florida judges play too great a role in sentencing while juries can only give recommendations. The court majority decided in Hurst v. Florida that, &#8220;The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant&#8217;s right to an impartial jury.\u00a0 This right required Florida to base Timothy Hurst&#8217;s death sentence on a jury&#8217;s verdict, not a judge&#8217;s fact finding.\u00a0 Florida&#8217;s sentencing scheme, which required the judge alone to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance, is therefore unconstitutional.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-2NT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10781"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10794,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10781\/revisions\/10794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}