Florida Supreme Court Corrects Major Error in Capital Sentencing Law

In 2016, in a case on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court made a major error in the law of jury trial and capital sentencing, running roughshod over decades of precedent. That case was Hurst v. State, 202 So.2d 40 (Fla. 2016), on remand from Hurst v. Florida, 136 S.Ct. 616 (2016). Today, in State v. Poole, No. SC18-245, the state high court backs off from its Hurst opinion to the extent that it goes beyond what the U.S. Supreme Court required.

The framework for capital sentencing established by the Supreme Court in its 1976 and later decisions requires two additional steps before a convicted murderer can be sentenced to death. First, a fact-based “eligibility” finding must be made that at least one fact has been proved from a statutory list of factors beyond the basic elements of murder. Second, in the “selection” step, there must be a discretionary judgment that this is a case suitable for the death penalty, after considering mitigating as well as aggravating circumstances. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Hurst and the 2002 case of Ring v. Arizona require a jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt for the eligibility step and only for the eligibility step.

On remand in the Hurst case, the Florida Supreme Court got this completely wrong. It glossed over the distinction between the eligibility and selection findings and applied the Ring /Hurst requirements to both, along with a requirement that the jury be unanimous. Further, the court applied this requirement retroactively all the way back to Ring. This resulted in massive miscarriages of justice, as even a single dissenting juror in a case that has been correctly tried under the law at the time resulted in setting aside well-deserved sentences.

In 2001, Anthony Poole broke into the home of Loretta White in the middle of the night while she and her fiance Noah Scott were asleep. He sexually assaulted Ms. White, and attacked her with a tire iron when she resisted. When Mr. Scott came to her defense, Poole beat him to death with the tire iron. Poole’s identity as the perpetrator was confirmed by DNA.

After a first death sentence was vacated on appeal, a second jury recommended the death penalty 11 to 1. The trial judge weighed the aggravating and mitigating factors and found it was not even close. He resentenced Poole to death.

After the Florida Supreme Court’s erroneous expansion of U.S. Supreme Court’s requirements in Hurst, the trial court had no choice but to vacate the sentence. The State appealed, asking the Florida Supreme Court to reconsider Hurst. That court did so and today rolled Hurst back to its proper scope of the eligibility finding only. That is, the constitution requires that the finding of at least one aggravating circumstance be made by a jury on proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The procedure and standards for the discretionary selection determination remain up to the legislature.

The lone dissenting justice writes an opinion with more heat than light, conflating the trend in other other states with what the constitution requires. A concurring justice notes, correctly, that the two have little, if anything, to do with each other.

Going forward, the Florida Legislature has required that the jury make the selection decision, and today’s decision will not change that. The Legislature unwisely adopted a single-juror-veto system, where a vote of 11 for the death penalty versus 1 for life in prison means that the judgment of the 1 prevails over the judgment of the 11. The Legislature can, and in my opinion should, change to a true unanimity requirement where the jury must be unanimous one way or the other, and a deadlocked jury results in a retrial before another jury.

A closely related issue is presently before the United States Supreme Court in McKinney v. Arizona. CJLF’s brief in that case is here, with an analysis very similar to the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion today.