Florida House members, on Thursday, gave final approval to a bill that would do away with a requirement for unanimous jury recommendations before judges can impose death sentences.
The unanimity requirement was put in place by the Legislature in 2017, in response to decisions by the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the bill approved this week (SB 450) emerged after Nikolas Cruz was sentenced to life in prison last year in the 2018 shooting deaths of 17 students and faculty members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. A jury did not unanimously recommend the death penalty, requiring Cruz to be sentenced to life.
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The House voted 80-30 to approve the bill, after the Senate passed it March 30. DeSantis is expected to sign the measure, which would allow death sentences to be imposed based on the recommendations of eight of 12 jurors. Judges would have discretion to sentence defendants to life in prison after receiving jury recommendations of death — but would also be required to explain in written orders their reasons for diverging from the recommendations.
House sponsor Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, argued that scrapping the unanimity requirement would stop an “activist juror” from preventing a death sentence. Jacques, a former prosecutor, described recommendations from eight of 12 jurors as a “supermajority.”
“That supermajority says clearly that it is reflective of the voice of our people,” Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville, said.
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But opponents warned that such a change would face a constitutional challenge and pointed to a history of Florida Death Row inmates being exonerated after their convictions. Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, said sentencing a defendant to death demands the “highest threshold.”
“We are talking about the state injecting chemicals into a person’s body to take their life,” Gantt said.
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