There is legislative and judicial news from Florida.
"Gov. Scott signs bill killing Florida Commission on Capital Cases," is the title of Paul Flemming's report in the Sunday Tallahassee Democrat.
Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday killed the Florida Commission on Capital Cases.
He signed into law a bill passed in haste late on the final night of the legislative session. The elimination of the commission saves $400,000 and gets rid of five positions. It completely eliminates the only clearinghouse for death-penalty case information, the status of court cases of the 397 people on Florida's death row and archival cases on the 69 people Florida has put to death since 1979.
The bill, pushed by House Speaker Dean Cannon, provides for a small part of the commission's duties to be shifted elsewhere, but leaves much else up in the air.
"The Legislature agonized over cutting many worthy programs. And we understand that, in this economy, cuts have to be made," said Roger Maas, executive director of the commission since its 1997 inception. He and his staff will be out of a job at the end of the month.
Lobbying to keep the commission intact and even broaden its work to encompass the full breadth of its original intent failed. One attorney who works on death-penalty cases, however, said the commission won't be missed.
Legal advocates that include former Florida Supreme Court Justice Raul Cantero, a former 5th District Court of Appeal judge from Brevard County and various lawyers with death-penalty agendas called to keep the commission alive, to no avail. Now, the question becomes what it will mean.
"I didn't necessarily shed a tear when they were shut down," said Todd Doss, a Lake City attorney who litigates death-penalty appeals and is a board member of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Doss said the comprehensive status reports the commission maintained on state and federal legal appeals were convenient, but not essential. "It doesn't affect what I do."
However, one result could be a paradox, at odds with Cannon's stated desire for death-penalty cases to be tried more efficiently. Cannon said earlier this year the Supreme Court spends a disproportionate amount of time on death-penalty cases and noted that in recent years, more death-row inmates have died of natural causes than by lethal injection.
The end of the commission, in part responsible for continuing legal education required of both lawyers and judges in capital cases, could very well give rise to legal challenges that delay even further carrying out executions.
"That's the irony in the whole thing," said state Rep. Jim Waldman, a Democrat from Coconut Creek and chairman of the now-defunct commission. "It's the opposite of what (Cannon) wants to effectuate by getting rid of this. This is the one commission specifically devoted to dealing with death-penalty issues and the expeditious administration of justice. By doing away with this commission you're saying you're not really concerned with" due process.
And:
Charles Harris, a retired judge at the 5th District Court of Appeal and a member of the commission's board since last year, hoped the commission would become more active and lead a push to consider the efficacy of the death penalty.
"I think the death penalty needs to be reviewed; it needs to be improved," Harris said. "The whole thing is that the public thinks the death penalty is sure and swift. It's not."
"We've got two death sentences," available now, Harris said, referring to execution and life without possibility of release. "It's just that one is a lot more expensive than the other."
Cantero, in a 2005 Supreme Court opinion, urged the Legislature to consider requiring unanimous jury votes to impose the death penalty. That has not happened. The Republican-dominated Legislature has refused reviews of the state's death penalty, including those sought by Cantero, commission board members and a massive American Bar Association study that found inequities in multiple stages of capital cases.
Also:
The commission compiled a listing of those death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals and are eligible for a death warrant signed by the governor. Such a list was delivered to Scott during his first week in office earlier this year naming 47 ready for execution.
"Fla. high court has new policy in some death cases," is the AP report by Brendan Farrington. It's via the Miami Herald.
The state Supreme Court reversed a death sentence in a 1988 Pensacola quadruple murder case and then told the lower court Thursday that there is no longer a need to hold a new sentencing hearing, just decide whether Michael Coleman should serve his four life sentences concurrently or consecutively.
That will be the practice from now on when the Supreme Court decides a judge improperly overrode a jury's life sentence recommendation. The court said it has been inconsistent in ordering new sentencing hearings or ordering a life sentence in these cases and it has decided that new hearings are pointless when they've already concluded that a life sentence is reasonable.
The Florida Supreme Court ruling in Coleman v. Florida is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Earlier coverage from Florida begins at the link. More on the ABA's Florida assessment, also available.
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