The Florida Supreme Court upheld Florida’s law allowing non-unanimous juries to sentence people to death upon a vote of 8-4.
The court’s decision came in a pair of cases, Jackson v. Florida and Hunt v. Florida, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the legality of a 2023 statute permitting judges to impose capital punishment even if juries are not unanimous in their verdicts.
In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court declared non-unanimous sentencings unconstitutional after a Supreme Court decision ruled that Florida’s capital sentencing statute violated the Sixth Amendment. The state legislature passed a bill requiring a 10-2 jury recommendation, but the state supreme court said such recommendations should be unanimous, prompting lawmakers in 2017 to require a unanimous jury.
In 2023, state lawmakers in response to a verdict that spared the life of the school shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, changed the law again to allow courts to impose the death penalty based on a recommendation of eight or more jurors despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that unanimity is required for guilty verdicts in all cases where a defendant is charged with a serious offense.
Florida is one of only two states to allow divided juries to sentence people to death. Florida is the only state to allow fewer than 10 jurors to recommend death. The only other state that doesn’t require a unanimous jury verdict is Alabama, with 10 jurors.
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