SB450 amends state law by requiring a recommendation of at least eight jurors, instead of a unanimous jury, for the imposition of the death penalty, while providing for the sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if fewer than eight jurors recommend the death penalty.
The House passed SB450 on April 13, 2023, by a vote of 80 to 30. We have assigned pluses to the yeas because justice is the overall purpose of civil government, and the administration of the death penalty is its greatest responsibility. However, a judicial system is only as good as those who apply the law. Allowing two-thirds of jurors in the State of Florida to recommend the death penalty prevents miscarriages of justice caused by one or more rogue jurors who expressly defy the law during the sentencing process—despite the jury unanimously finding a defendant guilty of a capital felony. According to the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “all criminal prosecutions” shall be tried by an “impartial jury of the State,” but there is no provision for a requisite of unanimity. Under the 10th Amendment, the power to compose this jury, and to prescribe the exact proportion of jurors that must concur in its decisions, is “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”