The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Florida’s death penalty statute last week. Still unclear, though, is who will live and who will die.

That decision now falls to the Florida Supreme Court. The seven justices must answer two key questions that will largely determine who among the 390 inmates on Florida’s death row will get relief.

Lawyers, judges and death penalty specialists disagree on what that court will do. Many, though, say it’s a good bet that the U.S. Supreme Court decision will affect all the defendants who have not exhausted their appeals.

That could be about 60 percent of Florida’s death row population.

For those, the benefit may not be an automatic conversion of their sentence to life in prison. It might be a new sentencing hearing, which could leave inmates right back where they started, with new death sentences, should the Florida Legislature, as expected, rewrite the state’s capital punishment statute.

The death penalty cases, said Michael Pirolo, chief assistant to the Public Defender in Brevard County, “are coming back, but it’s one by one. It’s not just some blanket order.”

The two key questions before the Florida Supreme Court are:

• Is the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling retroactive?

• Was the ruling a fundamental change in the law or merely procedural?

The Florida court could provide answers in the next three weeks, because the state is scheduled to execute a two-time murderer, Cary Michael Lambrix, on Feb. 11.

On Friday, the court refused to halt the execution. A few days earlier, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi had said there was no need for a stay because the new ruling does not apply to him.

Copy the Story Link