Supreme Court strikes down Florida death penalty law

[beth]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Florida’s death penalty law unconstitutional.

Florida requires the trial judge, not the jury to make the critical findings necessary to impose the death penalty.

That’s at odds with a string of Supreme Court cases which held that facts that add to a defendant’s punishment must be found by a jury.

“The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough,” wrote Sonia Sotomayor for the court’s 8-1 majority.

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/supreme-court-strikes-down-florida-death-penalty-law

[Jessiealan]

Jan 12, 2016 11:05:47 GMT -5 beth said:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Florida’s death penalty law unconstitutional.

Florida requires the trial judge, not the jury to make the critical findings necessary to impose the death penalty.

That’s at odds with a string of Supreme Court cases which held that facts that add to a defendant’s punishment must be found by a jury.

“The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough,” wrote Sonia Sotomayor for the court’s 8-1 majority.

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/supreme-court-strikes-down-florida-death-penalty-law

It appears the SCOTUS is pulling back state laws on grounds they are unconstitutional more and more. It is very possible the states will challange these rulings. Some are more concerned with "states' rights" than anything else.

[ladylinda]

I think this is an excuse.

It's abolishing the death penalty by stealth.

I much prefer an honest anti to this hole in the corner deceit.

[men an tol]

The paper written by John C. Douglas demonstrates how many of these case law decisions is reviewed, thereby demonstrating that this process is not some political ideology but rather the process of the law. Following is the paragraph leading into the article and it describes intent of the author. There is also an attached link to the entire article.

In short the author demonstrates the connection from this case to the Founding period and the approach to capital cases and ensuing sentencing. This demonstrates the reasons for the court's decision.

*****************
University of Richmond
Richmond School of Law
UR Scholarship Repository
Law Faculty Publications 11-2005

Confronting Death: Sixth Amendment Rights At Capital Sentencing


John G. Douglass
Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law. I am indebted to Paul Marcus and Carol Steiker for their helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to my colleagues Ron Bacigal and Corinna Lain for their insights. Two of my students deserve special thanks: Kelli Hall Branham asked the key questions that started this project, and Ryan Frei provided exceptional research assistance at every step.

Trial rights are different from sentencing rights. The Supreme Court has ruled that some Sixth Amendment rights (the right to counsel) apply at sentencing, while others (the right to a jury, the right to confront witnesses) do not. Because some rights are "in" at sentencing, and some are "out," the Court's recent terms have been consumed with cases-from Apprendi v. New Jersey, to Ring v. Arizona, to Blakely v. Washington, and finally to United States v. Booker-that struggle to draw the line between trial and sentencing. This Sixth Amendment line drawing is especially troublesome in death-penalty cases, where the Eighth Amendment already divides sentencing into eligibility issues and selection issues. As things now stand, the Court applies parts of the Sixth Amendment to parts of a capital sentencing proceeding. The unfortunate result is a confused doctrine that often calls for conflicting constitutional standards in a single sentencing. In this Article, I argue that the basic premise of these Sixth Amendment cases is misplaced when it comes to capital sentencing. Drawing on the history of
unified trials in the era of the Framers, where guilt and death were determined simultaneously by a single jury verdict in a trial with full adversarial rights, I argue that the whole of the Sixth Amendment applies to the whole of a capital case. At the time of the framing, popular resistance to mandatory death penalties contributed heavily to the birth of the adversarial rights we now see in the Sixth Amendment. The Framers knew nothing of a "guilt" phase and a "penalty" phase. They crafted the Sixth Amendment not only to protect the innocent from punishment, but also to protect the guilty from undeserved death.


scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=law-faculty-publications

[Sysop3]

Jan 13, 2016 18:19:37 GMT -5 ladylinda said:

I think this is an excuse.

It's abolishing the death penalty by stealth.

I much prefer an honest anti to this hole in the corner deceit.

I'm sure our Supreme Court Justices would not be looking for an excuse to do away with the DP, Lin. Make that real sure. You got it wrong on this one.

[ladylinda]

Well, we know some of the SCOTUS judges are against the death penalty.

And I think the US has seen a steady attrition of capital punishment state by state.

So I don't think my suggestion is some kind of paranoid fantasy.

[Sysop3]

Not paranoid. You just got it wrong.