Outrage over a jury’s decision that the Parkland shooter get a life sentence has started a movement over the state’s death penalty law. NBC 6’s Willard Shepard reports
Soon the families who lost loved ones at Parkland will have their final say in court on what this tragedy has done to them as moves are already underway to alter the way Florida decides if convicted killers should be executed.
The outrage over the life sentence that will be handed to the shooter is transitioning into how Florida may decide its death penalty cases in the future. How did we get to how a single juror could determine the fate of a convicted killer?
The Parkland victims' families' anger was evident at how a jury could possibly have returned with anything other than a recommendation for a death sentence.
“We are beyond disappointed with the outcome," Broward school board member Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter Alyssa died in the shooting, said on the day of the jury's decision. "This should have been the death penalty, 100%."
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NBC 6 learned from speaking with some jurors that one member of the panel had always been firm against execution. A letter to Judge Elizabeth Scherer indicated a juror denied having made up her mind for a life sentence before hearing the evidence, an allegation she says other jurors made.
The two candidates for Florida governor both believe the way the state requires a unanimous recommendation from a jury for a death sentence needs to be re-examined.
“To have one juror hold out on that was a travesty," Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a recent debate. "So, yes, I am going to ask the Florida Legislature to amend that statute so that one juror doesn’t have veto power over appropriate punishment.”
“Whatever it takes to make sure that we can enforce those laws that say there are consequences to your actions; we need to be able to enforce them and get it done right," Democratic challenger Charlie Crist said.
Under the law in Florida until 2016, the judge made the decision on whether a person would get a death sentence and the jurors gave a non-binding opinion. That all changed when one inmate convicted of killing his coworker at a fast food restaurant went to the United States Supreme Court.
Convicted killer Timothy Lee Hurst won his argument at the high court. The court said jurors should be the ones who recommended that Hurst be executed and that judges can’t do that on their own. Then the Florida Supreme Court ruled that for a death sentence, it had to be a unanimous decision by jurors.
In 2020, the Florida high court reversed that ruling and opened the door for lawmakers to make a change back to what existed before, but to this point, that hasn’t happened.
“The fact of the matter is the system that we have for evaluating whether or not someone would live or die, for the most part, functions correctly. Although usually when they make mistakes, it's on the other side,” said death penalty legal expert Phil Reizenstein.
He said the train has already left the station when it comes to Florida returning to the way it used to be to decide who is executed.
“I believe it’s going to happen, and I believe what you are going to see is an attempt to return to a non-unanimous jury recommendation. We know the U.S. Supreme Court has said 7-5 is unconstitutional. I think they will keep trying. They may go 8-4, 9-3, 10-2. They are going to try their best,” Reizenstein said. “The second thing that’s going to happen is they are going to introduce laws that say judges can override juries' life recommendations and even if jurors vote for life, a judge can still sentence someone to death.”
When it comes to selecting jurors who will hear death penalty cases, Reizenstein said, "Picking a jury is an art and a science. There’s definitely a science to it and there’s definitely an art to it as well. You know no one has invented a better way. So, the fact of the matter is, that we have to rely on what jurors tell us.”
The families will be able to speak with little or no restrictions in court Tuesday and Wednesday before the shooter will be sentenced. State lawmakers will be back in Tallahassee in April, where preventing another legal conclusion like this under any crime remotely like what happened at Parkland is expected to be a top priority.
