A House panel is slated to take up a death-penalty proposal, three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s death-penalty system giving judges—not juries—the power to impose death sentences is unconstitutional.
The 8-1 ruling in Hurst v. Florida was centered on what are known as “aggravating” circumstances that must be found before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in Ring v. Arizona, requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be made by juries, not judges.
