(FL) Death Penalty May Be In Jeopardy (Stupid Repugs

[wakeme2008]

http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBT0GU9INE.html

Death Penalty May Be In Jeopardy

By TODD LESKANIC [e-mail]

Published: May 22, 2006

Legislators passed on tweaking Florida's death penalty law this session, despite warnings from legal experts and the Florida Supreme Court that the statute could be in jeopardy.

To convict someone of murder, a jury's vote must be unanimous. But in Florida and a few other states, jurors can recommend a death sentence by a simple majority vote. And unlike in most states, judges, not juries, sentence people to death her

..cut..
After striking down a lower court's pretrial ruling, the state's high court asked the Legislature to review the death penalty law to "decide whether it wants Florida to remain the outlier state."

Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Pompano Beach, and Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, responded by introducing legislation to require unanimous jury votes in recommending death sentences.

..more at link....


When the State's Supreme Court tells the Leg. to review and correct a law and they ignore them.... Train Wreck ....

[superconnected]

1. I'm not getting your point.

If the DP is in jeopardy, good.

[wakeme2008]

2. My point is the Florida Supremes told the Leg that there

is problems with the DP law and they ignored the problem. Next step is to declare it unconstitutional at which point the Repugs will cry about "Liberal Judges"

[seasat]

3. I will be glad if we get rid of the death penalty here but,

you're probably right about the crying about "librul activist judges". The Repugs are hurting even in Florida. They don't stand a chance in the Senate race and we have a great shot at getting the Governor's mansion. They are probably doing this on purpose as a way of firing up their base. On the other hand, it may turn off some of the already disenchanted Hispanic voters that lean Repug. The majority of them are Catholic and would oppose the death penalty. If They are playing this game then it is a risky strategy since, if we play it right, we could turn it our way.

[Lexingtonian]

4. Hey, I'm fine with this idiocy

If that death penalty statute gets overturned, I don't see the problem. Capital punishment is on its way out anyway.

As for why the state reps want to keep this death-by-majority de facto lynching statute- it's because an awful lot of juries, no matter how "well" the state attorneys select them, these days have two or three people who refuse to vote for death for common crimes.