FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 3, 2016
CONTACT:  ACLU of Florida Media Office, 
media@aclufl.org, (786) 363-2737

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- The Florida Senate has passed a bill, HB 7101, which alters the state’s death sentencing system in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hurst v. Florida holding that the state’s method for issuing death sentences was unconstitutional.

The bill had previously been passed by the Florida House and includes a provision altering Florida’s current requirement that only a 7-5 majority of jurors may recommend a sentence of death, raising the threshold to 10-2. It now awaits the signature of Gov. Rick Scott.

Responding to the bill’s passage, ACLU of Florida Director of Public Policy Michelle Richardson stated:

 “The bill passed today by the Florida Legislature addresses a few – but not all – of the serious flaws in our state’s death penalty system. Our legislators have finally recognized that the system by which a person could be sentenced to death even if five jurors disagree was unreliable and unacceptable, and we are glad that those days will soon be behind us.

“We strongly supported the language unanimously adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee after overwhelming testimony from criminal justice experts which would have required a unanimous jury determination. That would have brought Florida in line with the standard used in nearly every other state still using the death penalty, and would have reduced the errors and exonerations that have made Florida’s death penalty notorious throughout the country.  But at least our legislature has begun to take a critical look at our capital punishment system. However, that work is not finished.

“Even after this bill is signed into law, there will still be serious constitutional problems with the death penalty in Florida, and we have to stop tinkering with the machinery of death and address them. We hope that it doesn’t take another ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court for legislators to find the political will to do so. In the meantime, Gov. Scott would be wise to put Florida’s death penalty on hold until the courts determine whether the death penalty can ever be carried out in a constitutional manner.”

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