The Florida Supreme Court has upheld a law that allows a death sentence to be imposed with just eight votes out of 12 jurors.
Florida has a history of allowing non-unanimous juries to recommend the death penalty, but a 2016 state Supreme Court decision ended that practice. But when several new justices joined the court, the court reversed course, and the state Legislature passed the current nonunanimous law in 2023.
The state’s standard, which allows one-third of jurors to vote against the death penalty, is among the lowest in the nation. Alabama is the only other state to allow non-unanimous death recommendations, but recommendations there require the consent of at least 10 jurors.
Lawyers for the defendants have indicated they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state high court’s ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that a unanimous jury is required to convict a defendant, but it has never considered the constitutionality of non-unanimous verdicts during the penalty phase of capital cases.
“The Origins of Racism”
The Florida Supreme Court’s decision is jackson vs florida The executions come at the end of a year in which Florida was unique in the nation, having executed 19 people in 2025, nearly four times as many as any other state. Florida has about 250 people with death warrants, second only to California, which has not executed anyone in 20 years.
Florida’s large number of prisoners on death row is one reason why only two-thirds of jurors need to approve the death penalty. As of last year, nearly 60 percent of Florida’s death row inmates were sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries. Without the state’s nonunanimous jury law, the case would have continued to be deliberated until the jury reached a unanimous verdict, and some jurors would almost certainly have been sentenced to life in prison.
Even more troubling, non-unanimous death sentences can increase the likelihood that innocent people will be executed. Thirty people on Florida’s death row have been acquitted. This was the largest number of death row inmates to be acquitted in all states. 97 percent of them were sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries.
Historians say the law allowing juries to reach verdicts without unanimity was originally passed to exclude black jurors from meaningfully participating in jury duty. Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized this point in his 2020 U.S. Supreme Court concurrence. Ramos vs. LouisianaA decision barring a conviction unless all jurors agree. Nonunanimous jury laws have “racist origins” and have the “potential to silence the voices” of black jurors, Kavanaugh wrote.
The court is Ramos Only the result of a guilty verdict will be considered. If a person is convicted of a crime for which the death penalty may be applicable, the case moves from the guilt phase to the penalty phase. At this stage, the person will only be sentenced to death if the jury returns a death sentence.
Changing legal landscape
in 2016 Hurst vs. Floridathe Florida Supreme Court considered prior law allowing non-unanimous juries to recommend the death penalty. The court ruled that a jury must unanimously find that aggravating circumstances exist to qualify a defendant for the death penalty. If so, the jury must recommend whether to impose the death penalty. The court held that a final death penalty recommendation must also be unanimous because it is “equivalent to a jury verdict at the sentencing stage of a trial.”
But the state Supreme Court reversed course on its second ruling in the 2020s after three justices reached retirement age. State vs. Pool. Nothing in the Sixth Amendment’s right to a jury, the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, or the Florida Constitution requires a jury rather than a judge to make the final decision on whether to impose the death penalty, much less impose it unanimously, the new court said.
Continue pool After a jury did not recommend the death penalty for the defendant convicted of killing 17 people in the Parkland school shooting, the Legislature changed state law in 2023 to make recommendations nonunanimous again.
Constitutional Arguments for Non-Unanimous Death
Michael James Jackson was convicted in 2007 of murdering an elderly couple, James and Carol Sumner, by burying them alive. His original death sentence was reversed by a state high court ruling. Hurst. But due to various delays, including the coronavirus pandemic, his resentencing could not take place until a month after Congress enacted the 2023 law. After two hours of deliberation, the jury recommended the death penalty by a minimum vote of 8-4.
Jackson and lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the non-unanimous 2023 legislation on multiple grounds. Most simply, Jackson argued that the Sixth Amendment’s right to criminal juries, as understood by the Framers, encompassed the right to be unanimous in decisions to carry out the death penalty.
Jackson also argued that the effect of non-unanimity on black jurors violated the Equal Protection Clause. Not seeking the consent of jurors with minority views acts to deny participation to jurors of color and “creates a breeding ground for racism,” he said, highlighting Kavanaugh’s argument. Ramos Agree. A court brief by Black-led groups and lawmakers cites empirical data showing “divergent views on racial bias in the death penalty.” Additionally, the groups argued that the Florida lawmaker’s comments about wanting to target “activist jurors” make it clear that the law is intended to eliminate the perspectives of jurors who are less likely to die.
Jackson continued that the effective exclusion of black jurors violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and affects black defendants who are eligible for capital punishment. The law also violates the Eighth Amendment, he argued. This is because the abandonment of the unanimous death penalty recommendation, compounded by the state’s retreat from other death penalty safeguards, such as the suspension of sentencing reviews that take into account proportionality between cases and co-defendants, and the doubling of the number of aggravating factors that qualify a defendant for the death penalty, has led to the death penalty being applied arbitrarily and unreservedly to the most heinous crimes..
Additionally, Jackson said, “The events of time determined who lived and who died.” Of the approximately 145 defendants received; Mr. Hearst’s Just 85 people were sentenced before Congress returned to non-unanimous power, and 70 received life sentences, according to court briefs from criminal justice groups.
complete refusal
In a unanimous decision, the Florida Supreme Court rejected each of Jackson’s claims. Supreme Court Ramos The court wrote that the decision did not render the law unconstitutional because the case did not address the punishment phase of a death penalty trial. The court also noted precedent that the death penalty can be imposed without a jury recommendation, such as a U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed a judge to override a jury’s recommendation for a lesser sentence.
The court found that Mr. Jackson’s claim that the disparate impact of Florida’s nonunanimous law on black jurors violated equal protection was without merit, and declared that the claim fell “a long way” from proving racially discriminatory intent as required.
Regarding Jackson’s argument about the arbitrariness of the death sentence, the court said only that it had previously rejected claims about the erosion of safeguards against unconstitutional death sentences. They also disagreed that the imposition of death and life influenced the timing of death. Hurst Outrage. The magazine noted that Jackson’s argument was actually about fairness, and that those outraged would likely be sentenced to death after the 2023 law. Framing the issue as equal protection rather than cruel and unusual punishment, the court reasoned as follows: Hurst It did not create a protected legal right, it merely changed the procedure used to determine whether the death penalty applies.
Finally, the opinion states that Jackson’s suggestion that the court “impose a death sentence” “warrants no response other than strict caution on the part of attorneys.”
The only dissent came from Justice Jorge Labarga, who concurred. In court precedent, pool And subsequent events forced him to participate in the outcome, he said. But he lamented Florida’s “absolute outlier” non-unanimous standards and highlighted the state’s high acquittal rate for death row inmates.
Sarah Kessler is an advisor and contributing editor. state court report.
Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot state court report Senior Counsel, Justice Program, Brennan Center for Justice;
Recommended citation: Sarah Kessler & Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot, Florida Supreme Court refuses to repeal non-unanimous death sentencesSᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (January 13, 2026), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/florida-supreme-court-raises-end-non-unanimous-death-verdicts
