Death penalty news

--FLORIDA, TEXAS, WASHINGTON (state)
Date: 11. februar 1998 17:40

FLORIDA:

Killers convicted of first-degree murder could be sentenced to a lifetime of solitary confinement under a plan that received tentative approval Tuesday from the Constitution Revision Commission.
The proposal also gives juries rather than judges the power to decide who gets sentenced to death in Florida. Currently, judges in 1st-degree murder cases can hand down sentences of death or life in prison.
But before the measure will be guaranteed a spot on the November ballot, the commission must give it final approval with at least 22 votes. Tuesday's vote was 16-13.
If the amendment is added to the state constitution, it will both preserve the death penalty and reduce the number of death sentences, according to Attorney General Bob Butterworth. He called the proposal excellent.
About 400 people are convicted of 1st-degree murder each year in Florida, and about 20 are sentenced to death. Florida has averaged 2 executions a year since capital punishment was reinstated 22 years ago.
Juries now recommend sentences in capital punishment cases by majority vote, but judges have the final say.
A proposal by Miami attorney Bobby Brochin would require that no one be sentenced to death unless a jury has unanimously recommended that option.
"The 12 persons who heard the evidence, the 12 persons who unanimously decided to convict the person should be the same 12 persons who decide on the death penalty," Brochin said.
Of 38 states with capital punishment, all but 10 require unanimous jury support for death sentences, he said. And of those 10, only Florida and Alabama allow judges to override jury recommendations.
The commission voted 17-11 to change Brochin's amendment with the plan that won preliminary approval. Instead of requiring a unanimous jury recommendation for death sentences, the new version gave juries the final say in sentences and provided for a sentence of solitary confinement.
"The judge gets jaded, the jury doesn't," said Dexter Douglass, a Tallahassee lawyer who chairs the review panel and proposed the new language.
Douglass' proposal originally required a 9-3 vote for a death sentence. The commission, however, voted 16-12 to change that to a simple majority of 7-5.
Miami attorney H.T. Smith, who supported Brochin's proposal, said Douglass' version would "take a system that is flawed and make it even more flawed."
Alan Sundberg, a former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, said he believed Douglass' proposal was unconstitutional and would lead to "freakish results."
Brochin said Douglass' version "is going to greatly disrupt an already chaotic system."
> Also Tuesday, the commission voted 22-5 against a proposal to create a new court in Florida to review death sentences, which now are handled by the state Supreme Court.

(source: Tampa Bay Online)