“A
miscarriage of justice.”
That’s what the Florida Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee says about the death march taking place at the Florida Supreme Court.
By a 3-2 vote this week, the Senate committee approved legislation (SB 870) that calls on the court to abandon its arbitrary distinction between death row inmates who do or don’t deserve new sentencing hearings since Florida’s old sentencing law was found unconstitutional in January 2016.
The description is correct. The court’s apparent indifference to fair play is staggering. It reflects poorly on the court and on the character of the state.
The Florida court refuses to make the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling retroactive to inmates — an estimated 163 of them — whose death sentences were considered “final” before June 24, 2002. That’s when a ruling in an Arizona case put Florida on notice that its death sentencing law would likely be thrown out. But it took 14 more years for that shoe to fall in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, which says a jury, not a judge, must determine if the facts warrant execution.
For prisoners whose sentences became “final” during that interval, the Florida court has been granting new hearings, for the most part, to those whose juries didn’t vote unanimously for death.
In a series of identical orders over the past two weeks, the court rejected all 80 petitions for new hearings. In only 15 of those cases did the jury unanimously recommend the death penalty. In 47 cases, at least two jurors voted against death. Eleven juries were split by votes of 7 to 5.
All would be affected by SB 870, which says the court’s decision to deny them a new sentencing hearing “will result in a miscarriage of justice for those inmates.” It is “the intent of the legislature” that they should be covered by the precedent set by the Hurst decision.
Still, on Tuesday, the court continued its march for death. It unanimously denied a stay of execution for Eric Scott Branch, who is scheduled to be put to death Feb. 22 for the 1993 rapemurder of Susan Morris, a University of West Florida student.
Branch is among the 80 inmates who have lost their bids for new sentencing hearings. The jury vote in his case was 10-2. He also has a separate appeal on other issues pending before the court.
Branch’s attorneys urged the court to consider that “a wave” of petitions from Florida’s death row “is set to flood that United States Supreme Court’s docket” shortly after Branch’s execution date. If the court rules against Florida in those cases, they said, “the injustice in (Branch’s) case will be irreparable.”
The Florida court did not explain why it denied the stay, which the U.S. Supreme Court could still grant. But the Florida court’s usual practice is to leave that sort of decision to the high court, often at the eleventh hour.
SB 870 is sponsored by Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Ocoee, chair of the criminal justice committee. In a legal sense, the legislation would not overrule the court. Such an attempt would probably be unconstitutional. But the declaration of legislative intent would “send a powerful message to the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to Karen Gottlieb of the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University.
The bill is, of course, a long way from passage, a prospect that must be rated unlikely given the Legislature’s history of embracing the death penalty. But the committee’s bipartisan vote is a welcome note of conscience on an issue that cries out for it.
Email letters to the editor to romenewstribune@RN-T.com or submit them to the Rome News-Tribune, 305 E. Sixth Ave., Rome, GA 30162.