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eighth amendment

Florida Supreme Court in Seminal Decision Rules Death Penalty Verdicts Must Be Unanimous

October 14, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 1 Comment

No Flagler County jury has sat for a capital trial in recent memory. If and when it does next, its verdict must be unanimous for the death penalty to carry. (© FlaglerLive)

The court’s 5-2 decision, which will immediately affect 40 inmates and many of the 385 others on death row, ends Florida’s status as an outlier state where non-unanimous death penalty recommendations were allowed.

Sharply Split Court Revamps and Complicates Challenges to Solitary and Restrictive Confinement

July 12, 2016 | FlaglerLive | Leave a Comment

solitary confinement

Giving more “deference” to the Florida Department of Corrections, a sharply divided appeals court Tuesday approved revamping the legal process for inmates who challenge disciplinary decisions that take them out of the general prison population.

South Florida Judge Declares State’s New Death Penalty Law Unconstitutional

May 9, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 2 Comments

florida executions

While the decision is not necessarily controlling in Flagler County and the rest of Florida, it again muddies the fate of a law barely eight weeks old, and further sheds a harsh light on Florida’s outlier system of executions.

In Florida, Court Rules, a 55-Year Prison Sentence For a Juvenile Is Not a Life Term

April 25, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 1 Comment

juvenile sentences florida

Anthony Julian Collins was two months shy of 17 when he was committed an attempted second-degree murder, carjacking with a firearm and attempted armed robbery.

Poll-Tax Redux: Millions Free From Jail Are Barred From Voting By Criminal Debt

April 19, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 4 Comments

prison debt

Debt from fines starts at sentencing and can grow at interest rates of 12 percent or more while inmates serve their sentences. It continues to grow after they’re released and face the numerous barriers to finding work and housing.

Too Many Questions Beg The Answer: End the Death Penalty in Florida

February 24, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 3 Comments

florida death penalty

Rick Scott shouldn’t plan on signing any more death warrants soon, if ever, argues Martin Dyckman, even as the Florida House “cured” what the U.S. Supreme Court specifically found wrong with Florida’s death penalty.

Florida Supreme Court Halts Executions Indefinitely; 389 Death Row Inmates In Limbo

February 2, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

van death row inmates

The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Florida’s death-penalty sentencing scheme on Jan. 12, forcing the state to rewrite its law but also putting in question whether the new law must apply to all 489 death row inmates.

Florida Lawmakers Urged to Require Unanimous Verdicts in Death Penalty Cases

January 28, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 4 Comments

florida majority death penalty

Florida is the only state in the nation where a simple jury majority is enough for a death penalty recommendation, one of several problems at odds with a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Florida’s capital punishment system.

U.S. Supreme Court Declares Florida’s Death Penalty Scheme Unconstitutional

January 12, 2016 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

florida death penalty unconstitutional capital punishment

The United States Supreme Court, in an emphatic ruling Tuesday, declared Florida’s death penalty sentencing scheme to be a violation of the Sixth Amendment.

Supreme Court’s Lethal Injection Ruling Clears Way For More Florida Executions, and Challenges

June 29, 2015 | FlaglerLive | 4 Comments

lethal injection samuel alito antonin scalia

In the 5-4 majority opinion issued Monday, Justice Alito wrote that the first of the three-drug lethal cocktail used also used in Florida, “entails a substantial risk of severe pain.”

Yes, It’s Retroactive: Florida Supreme Court Rules All Lifers Sentenced as Juveniles Must Be Resentenced

March 19, 2015 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

The justices ordered lower Florida courts to apply a 2014 law to inmates who, as juveniles, were sentenced in the past either to life in prison or to terms that would have effectively kept them behind bars until they die. Two of the inmates were convicted of murder.

Don’t Expect Supreme Court’s Latest Review of Lethal Injection to Kill Death Penalty

February 5, 2015 | FlaglerLive | 1 Comment

States changed from hanging to electric chair because it was a modern, supposedly painless method of execution. Botched executions have rendered that assumption problematic.

Cruel and Unusual: 2 Inmates Who Murdered as Juveniles Challenge Their Life Sentences

November 8, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 1 Comment

Two inmates serving life in prison for murders committed as juveniles are challenging their sentences based on a 2012 US Supreme Court ruling that bans mandatory life sentences for juveniles.

Gruesome Buddies: ISIS Beheadings
And the American Death Penalty

September 19, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 20 Comments

ISIS beheadings have provoked instinctive revulsion, justly so. Too bad the same reaction doesn’t follow Florida’s and other American state’s equally barbaric continuation of the death penalty, a habit other civilized nations have abandoned.

John Ruthell Henry Is Executed, 18th Inmate Put to Death on Rick Scott’s Watch

June 19, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 9 Comments

No other first-term governor has signed the execution warrants of so many inmates since Florida re-instituted the death penalty in 1976. Since then, the state has executed 87 inmates. One in five of those has been executed on Scott’s watch, in less than four years.

U.S. Supreme Court Declares Florida’s Death Penalty Too Rigid in Low I.Q. Cases

May 27, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 6 Comments

The execution wing at Florida's Starke prison, scene of many an execution involving intellectually disabled inmates. (© FlaglerLive)

The court, in a 5-4 decision, said Florida’s use of an IQ score of 70 “creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus is unconstitutional.” “Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number,” wrote Justice Kennedy for the majority.

Gov. Scott Sticking By Lethal Injection Formula Despite Gruesome Execution in Oklahoma

May 8, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 14 Comments

A new report issued by the Constitution Project on Wednesday recommends that states like Florida scrap the three-drug lethal injection cocktail that resulted in a botched execution in Oklahoma last week and switch to a single drug instead. But Gov. Rick Scott’s administration says it’s making no changes.

Life Without Parole for Juveniles: Florida Struggles to Comply With Supreme Court Ruling

March 6, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 2 Comments

Florida's sentencing guidelines for juveniles are the harshest in the nation, and out of step with Supreme Court rulings. (Nicolas Nova)

Florida sentences more juveniles to life in prison without parole than any other state, but the pressure is on the Legislature this year to comply with restrictive U.S. Supreme Court rulings because without sentencing guidelines, the Florida judiciary is filling the gap one case at a time.

Convicted in Trooper’s Murder, Paul Howell Is Executed, Gov. Scott’s 15th

February 27, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 8 Comments

Howell was convicted in 1994 in the 1992 murder of Florida Highway Patrol trooper Jimmy Fulford in 1992 when a bomb Howell manufactured exploded in the trooper’s hands after a traffic stop.

With 132 Death Row Inmates Readied for Execution, Lawyers Contest Fast-Track Law Before Florida Justices

February 4, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 3 Comments

More than 150 lawyers and Death Row inmates are challenging the so-called Timely Justice Act, signed by Gov. Rick Scott in June, intended to speed up executions. Lawyers argue it violates the constitutionally protected separation of powers as well as inmates’ rights to due process.

Death Penalty’s Latest Mutation:
Experimenting on Human Beings

January 28, 2014 | FlaglerLive | 14 Comments

The condemned's arm is slung through it and strapped for the lethal injection cocktail. (Florida Prisons)

The decision to seek the death penalty simply can’t be justified either by society’s or individuals’ desire for revenge, argues Steve Robinson. Were that the case, we could issue baseball bats to family members and let them beat the convict to death in the town square.

Florida Supreme Court Stays Execution, Raising Questions About Cruelty of Lethal Injection Cocktail

November 19, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 15 Comments

A 5-2 Florida Supreme Court vote put the execution of convicted murderer Askari Abdullah Muhammad on hold Monday to consider claims that the three-drug cocktail used to put inmates to death could cause unnecessary suffering.

Eric Holder Takes on the “War on Drugs,” Mandatory Sentences and Epidemic Imprisonment Rates

August 12, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 14 Comments

Attorney general Eric Holder on Monday delivered a seminal speech outlining a plan to revamp federal drug policy and incarceration rates of non-violent and elderly offenders, and urging Congress to review mandatory sentencing in light of a “war on drugs” that has not worked. The full speech.

Emergency Lawsuit Charges Law Fast-Tracking Death Row Inmates Is Unconstitutional

June 27, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 2 Comments

The suit alleges that the law, which goes in effect July 1, would violate the separation of powers by imposing obligations on lawyers that conflict with judicially-determined rules, and that it would alter the court’s authority to govern capital post-conviction litigation and would violate due process and equal protection.

Scott Signs Fast-Track Execution Bill, Making 13 Death Row Inmates Immediately Eligible

June 15, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 17 Comments

In signing the so-called “Timely Justice Act,” Scott went against the tide of calls, letters and emails urging him to veto it. As of Thursday, his office had received 447 phone calls, with 438 opposed to the bill; 14 letters, with 13 opposed; and 14,571 emails, with 14,565 opposed.

Van Poyck, Third Florida Inmate Executed This Year, Leaves Stark Word Trail Behind

June 13, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

William van Poyck had spent nearly 26 years on death row after his conviction in 1987 in the murder of a prison guard. He spent many of those years writing books and maintaining a public blog, which chronicled in the last weeks his last days on death row. Excerpts are included.

Fast-Track Kill Bill Aside, Scott Speeds Death Warrants, Slating 3 Executions in 26 Days

May 14, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 16 Comments

Gov. Rick Scott is not waiting to sign a bill that would accelerate the pace of capital-punishment executions in Florida. The death warrants he’s signed since April lead to the fastest-paced series of executions since four inmates were killed in March 1998, when Lawton Chiles was governor.

Bill Speeding Up Executions in Florida Passes Despite Disturbing Rate of Exonerations

April 30, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

Florida lawmakers gave final approval to fast-tracking executions and reducing Death Row stays, with supporters saying they want justice for victims’ families — but critics warning about executing innocent people, 24 of whom have been exonerated in Florida since 1976.

Exonerated Death Row Inmates Tell Flagler Beach Group of an Enduring Florida Injustice

March 23, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 23 Comments

In turns moving, startling and informative, a day-long workshop on the death penalty in Flagler Beach, featuring two exonerated men, urged an assembly of 60 to more actively get involved in a movement to abolish capital punishment in Florida.

The Death Penalty Comes to Flagler Beach: Saturday Workshop Takes On “Broken System”

March 19, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 19 Comments

The workshop between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday, March 23, at Santa Maria Del Mar’s Community Hall, will feature former death row inmates Herman Lindsey (exonerated in 2006) and Seth Penalver (2012), along with several other death penalty experts and advocates for the repeal of Florida’s capital punishment.

Lawmakers Want to Speed Up Executions of Florida’s 404 Death Row Inmates

March 6, 2013 | FlaglerLive | 10 Comments

The proposed constitutional amendment would shift power from the courts system to lawmakers to set rules about what are known as “post-conviction” appeals in death-penalty cases.

As Florida and Other States Privatize Prison Health Services, Care Standards Suffer

July 22, 2012 | FlaglerLive | 1 Comment

nurse ratched prison health services

Florida and other states, in an attempt to cut costs, are increasingly outsourcing health care for inmates to for-profit companies, but the trend is raising concerns among unions and prisoners’ rights groups.

Florida Professors Still Can’t Travel to Cuba On State’s Dime; Low IQ Execution Cleared

June 25, 2012 | FlaglerLive | Leave a Comment

Three Florida cases are the many the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear, which means a ban on Florida university faculty’s travel to Cuba stands, as does Florida’s authority to execute a Daytona Beach murderer with an IQ of 70.

Lethal Edict: Florida Supremes Rule “Isolated Mishaps” Aren’t Enough to Stop Executions

August 24, 2011 | FlaglerLive | 1 Comment

Clearing the way for executions by lethal injection, a unanimous Florida Supreme Court ruled invalid death row inmate Manuel Valle’s objection to pentobarbital, one of the three drugs used to put inmates to sleep–and to euthanize animals.

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