Miami Herald Logo

Fred Grimm: Florida’s death penalty chaos was no surprise | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Fred Grimm

Fred Grimm: Florida’s death penalty chaos was no surprise

By Fred Grimm

fgrimm@miamiherald.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

January 18, 2016 05:19 PM

Florida’s criminal justice system has fallen into a mess of our own making.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision last week finding serious flaws in Florida’s death penalty sentencing procedures. Suddenly, there’s considerable uncertainty about the sentences imposed on the 389 condemned prisoners on Death Row. Except for the absolute certainty that their lawyers are about to flood Florida courts with petitions demanding reconsideration of their cases. And that even more time and money and paper and patience will be devoured by Florida’s death penalty process.

All of which was utterly predictable. Utterly avoidable.

State legislators were warned by the Florida Supreme Court back in 2005 that the state’s singular sentencing scheme needed fixing: “We ask the Legislature to revisit it to decide whether it wants Florida to remain the outlier state.”

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush urged the Legislature to heed the court and revisit the death penalty statute.

Legislators ignored the state Supreme Court and ignored Bush.

A year later, an American Bar Association panel of experts released a Florida Death Penalty Assessment raising similar concerns about the sentencing procedure and “Florida’s failure to require jury unanimity when recommending a death sentence, in addition to the state’s practice of allowing judges to override jury sentencing recommendations.”

Again, there was no legislative response.

But lawmakers could hardly ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision handed down on the very opening day of the 2016 legislative session. “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the prevailing opinion. “A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough.”

Of the 33 states with the death penalty, Florida had been one of only three that allow a judge to override a jury recommendation. But here’s the confounding thing behind the tough-on-crime Legislature’s obdurate refusal to fix the problem. A change would have had no practical effect.

A Florida judge hasn’t overridden a jury recommendation for life imprisonment and imposed the death penalty since 1999. A Broward jury had voted 8-4 in favor of a life sentence for Jeffrey Weaver, who had been convicted in the 1996 murder of Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Bryant Peney. But Circuit Judge Mark Speiser, perhaps responding to public outrage around the case, imposed the death penalty. That was the last time a Florida judge ignored a jury recommendation for life. In 2004, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Speiser had erred. Weaver was re-sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

But who knows how the courts will deal with the 384 men and five women in Florida who were sentenced to die under a statute found constitutionally wanting? Florida judges must now wrestle with questions of whether last week’s Supreme Court ruling applies retroactively. Not to mention the logistics associated with hauling dangerous convicts around the state to re-sentencing hearings.

All of which could have been avoided if Florida’s legislative leadership, terrified of looking soft on crime, had not been so pigheaded.

Fred Grimm: fgrimm@miamiherald.com, @grimm_fred

Related stories from Miami Herald

florida

High court orders Florida to overhaul death penalty decisions

January 12, 2016 06:34 PM

state-politics

Florida Supreme Court refuses to halt next scheduled execution

January 15, 2016 07:05 PM

state-politics

Florida Legislature will tackle death penalty after U.S. Supreme Court ruling

January 12, 2016 12:23 PM

national

Supreme Court strikes down Florida’s way of imposing death sentences

January 12, 2016 10:58 AM

state-politics

Despite U.S. Supreme Court ruling, state of Florida insists next execution go on

January 14, 2016 06:42 PM

  Comments  

Videos

Codina calls new office building, “home”

A development wave is redrawing the face of Coral Gables

View More Video

Trending Stories

Military planes carrying 180 tons of aid for Venezuelans fly from Miami to Colombia

February 16, 2019 08:00 AM

One dead in shooting near South Beach’s Ocean Drive

February 17, 2019 06:47 AM

Mark Walton, former Canes star now with the Cincinnati Bengals, arrested in Miami

February 16, 2019 11:05 AM

Wade on relationship with Riley: ‘We’ve had way more amazing moments than we’ve had not’

February 17, 2019 02:13 PM

For Haitians, a reprieve from violence and protests on Sunday, but uncertainty remains

February 17, 2019 12:07 AM

Read Next

A career chasing disasters, scandals, murders and opening day of turkey season, 1969

Fred Grimm

A career chasing disasters, scandals, murders and opening day of turkey season, 1969

By Fred Grimm

    ORDER REPRINT →

August 25, 2017 08:00 AM

Mostly, I chased calamities. Sometimes (like one frightening night during the 1980 Miami riots) calamities chased me.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE FRED GRIMM

Florida’s lunkhead ‘white supremacists’ ain’t all that supreme

Fred Grimm

Florida’s lunkhead ‘white supremacists’ ain’t all that supreme

August 17, 2017 08:02 PM
New studies and new catastrophes give climate change deniers a lot to deny

Fred Grimm

New studies and new catastrophes give climate change deniers a lot to deny

August 10, 2017 07:01 PM
Floridians oblivious to an epidemic of accidental child shootings

Fred Grimm

Floridians oblivious to an epidemic of accidental child shootings

August 03, 2017 07:14 PM
Doped up greyhounds add to the disgrace dogging parimutuels in Florida

Fred Grimm

Doped up greyhounds add to the disgrace dogging parimutuels in Florida

July 21, 2017 07:00 AM
Oblivious to the irony, Marlins (apologies to the actual fish) sue fans

Fred Grimm

Oblivious to the irony, Marlins (apologies to the actual fish) sue fans

July 13, 2017 06:59 PM
New education law allows anti-science mob to go after evolution and climate change

Fred Grimm

New education law allows anti-science mob to go after evolution and climate change

July 06, 2017 07:30 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story