The Florida Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a jury must unanimously agree on a death sentence before it can be handed down.
The ruling came after Florida enacted a new law following a January ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that the state’s death penalty sentencing law was unconstitutional. The new law enacted by the Florida Legislature, at least until Friday, had allowed a defendant to be sentenced to death as long as 10 out of 12 jurors recommended it.
The Florida Supreme Court also ruled that Timothy Lee Hurst, the man whose case led to the SCOTUS decision in January, will get a new sentencing hearing.
“[W]e hold that the Supreme Court’s decision in Hurst v. Florida requires that all the critical findings necessary before the trial court may consider imposing a sentence of death must be found unanimously by the jury,” the court ruled in Hurst’s case.
The new Friday ruling puts the 385 inmates on Florida’s death row, as well as the state’s death penalty sentencing law as a whole, in limbo.
