CONDEMNED TO DEATH BY A SPLIT JURY IN FLORIDA.

• Author: Ciaramella, C.J.

FLORIDA HAS HAD more exonerations of death row inmates than any other state in the country--roughly one for every three executions the state has carried out. A track record like that would normally lead to a certain amount of circumspection, but not on Florida's highest court. In a major decision issued in January, the state Supreme Court reversed a 2016 ruling and declared that split juries can recommend death sentences.

In its majority opinion, the court ruled that it "got it wrong" when it decided that the state's previous death penalty scheme, which allowed death sentences to be imposed by the recommendation of nonunanimous juries, violated the Florida constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

"Lest there be any doubt, we hold that our state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment ... does not require a unanimous jury recommendation--or any jury recommendation--before a death sentence can be imposed," the majority opinion stated. "The text of our constitution requires us to construe the state cruel and unusual punishment provision in conformity with decisions of the Supreme Court interpreting the Eighth Amendment."

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death penalty law on Sixth Amendment grounds in 2016 because it relied too heavily on determinations by judges, rather than juries. In response, state legislators rewrote the law to require 10 out of 12 jurors to recommend the death penalty. The Florida Supreme Court then invalidated the new...