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