Jury unanimous recommendations target Florida death cases

TALLAHASSEE, Florida. – With the support of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers may remove the requirement that unanimous jury recommendations are required for death sentences.

Rep. Bernie Jacques, R-Seminole, filed a bill on Tuesday (HB 555) that would allow judges to sentence defendants to death based on recommendations from eight of 12 jurors. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, filed an identical bill (SB 450) on Monday.

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The proposed change comes six years after lawmakers required unanimous jury recommendations in death cases following a Florida Supreme Court decision. But the Supreme Court, with a new Conservative majority, reversed course in 2020, effectively allowing lawmakers to consider lifting the unanimity requirement.

The issue has also gained political momentum in recent months after Nicholas Cruz, who killed 17 people at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018, was sentenced to life in prison. This verdict came after the jury was not unanimous in recommending the death penalty.

“It is shameless that ‘protest juries’ can deny justice to the families of victims of horrific crimes in our current unanimity system,” Ingoglia said in a statement prepared Tuesday. “This is a much-needed reform to ensure that evil scumbags like Nicholas Cruz don’t get off with life in prison.”

DeSantis last week released a series of criminal justice proposals for upcoming legislation that included getting rid of the unanimity requirement. DeSantis called for a “qualified majority” requirement, i.e. more than 7 votes to 5.

But lifting the unanimity requirement is likely to generate debate, with opponents pointing to issues such as cases of death row inmates being exonerated.

This question concerns the sentencing stage of death penalty cases, not the guilt stage, where the jury must be unanimous in order to convict the defendants.

Florida has long allowed judges to hand down death sentences based on the recommendations of a majority of jurors. But that all changed after major decisions in 2016 by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court.

In January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, ruled that the state’s death penalty system was unconstitutional because it gave too much power to judges, not juries, in passing death sentences.

To try to enforce this decision, the Legislature quickly passed a measure that required a 10-to-2 jury vote before a death sentence could be handed down.

But in October 2016, in the eponymous case Hearst v. State, the Florida Supreme Court interpreted and applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and said unanimous recommendations from the jury were needed. The legislature responded in 2017 by including such a unanimous requirement into law.

However, after DeSantis took office in January 2019, he made appointments that created a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. In 2020, the court reversed course and said unanimous jury recommendations were not needed, although the unanimous requirement remained in law.

“Finally, for the avoidance of any doubt, we believe that our State Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment…does not require a unanimous recommendation of the jury — or any recommendation of the jury — prior to the imposition of a death sentence.” – Legislation 2020 The ruling, shared by Judges Charles Canadady and Ricky Paulston, reads:

But Judge Jorge LaBarga strongly disagreed, arguing that the majority “has taken a giant step back and taken away the essential guarantee of a fair application of the death penalty in Florida.”

“Today, the majority of this court is waiving the requirement that a Florida jury unanimously recommend that the defendant be sentenced to death,” LaBarga wrote. “In doing so, the majority returns to Florida its status as an absolute exception among the jurisdictions in this country that use the death penalty.”

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