Florida Death Penalty

Miami federal judge rules Florida's death penalty unconstitutional

A Miami federal judge ruled Wednesday that the way Florida courts mete out the death penalty is unconstitutional because juries — not judges — should be the ones to spell out which details about the crime justify execution.

U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez ordered that Paul H. Evans, convicted in a 1991 murder-for-hire case in Vero Beach, must receive a new sentencing hearing.

The ruling, likely to be argued in appellate courts for years, does not strike down Florida’s capital-punishment law. But it could force lawmakers to change the statute, and could give recent convicts new avenues for appeal, legal experts say.

“If the case survives appeals, the Florida Legislature is going to have to modify the law to allow jurors to explain why someone deserves the death penalty,” said Miami attorney Terry Lenamon, founder of the Florida Capital Resource Center, a support group for death-penalty defense cases.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, through a spokeswoman, said Wednesday that her office would request a rehearing and appeal the decision.

Martinez was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush.

Legal scholars say Martinez’s ruling marks the first time a Florida judge has overturned a death sentence under the U.S. Supreme Court case Ring v. Arizona. In that 2002 ruling, the court held that defendants are entitled to have juries decide on whether any “aggravating factors” in a crime justify enhanced punishment.

Evans was convicted in the 1991 trailer park murder of Alan Pfeiffer. Jurors voted 9-3 for the death penalty in February 1999. The trial judge imposed death, finding that Evans committed the crime for “pecuniary gain” and the murder was “committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.”

Whether any convicts will be resentenced because of Martinez’s ruling remains to be seen, but the opinion has reignited debate in the Florida legal community over the jury’s role in deciding on the death penalty.

Florida is one of the few states that allow juries to issue death penalty recommendations that are not unanimous. Here, 12-person juries recommend by majority vote whether someone convicted of first-degree murder should be executed. But state jurors do not have to check off on an instruction sheet which reasons contributed to their decision, as jurors are required to do in the rare death penalty case in federal court.

Florida Death Penalty Law Declared Unconstitutional - The ...

Paul E. Evans was convicted of killing a man in exchange for a stereo, a camcorder and some insurance money, according to court documents. The judge ruled that because the death penalty is an "enhanced" sentence under Florida law, it contrasts with the Supreme Court's ruling on Ring vs. Arizona, which found that the Sixth Amendment requires that a jury find "enumerated aggravating factors" for enhanced sentencing.

Judge Jose Martinez, in his ruling on the Miami case, argued that the defendant has no way of knowing whether the jury found the same aggravating factors as the judge -- who ultimately decides whether any of those circumstances constitute death -- because the findings are not explicit.

Aggravating circumstances, under Florida law, include disrupting law enforcement, felony murder, a great risk to many people, a victim less than 12 years of age, and anything that is perceived by the court as heinous, atrocious or cruel.

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