Discussion for article #245463
I know that it’s common for changes in legal standards not to be retroactive, but really, arguing that you should get to kill someone with a system that’s been ruled unconstitutional just because his lawyer didn’t get to the supreme court first?
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Well then, strike down the system in Alabama too. I personally know a judge who did just that – overruled the jury’s recommendation of a life sentence in favor of a death sentence. Why do they do this? To avoid being seen as “soft on crime” – the only way they can get themselves reelected. I see this guy in church, heading up to communion. It sickens me.
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Alas, there is plenty of anecdotal and historical evidence that people will adopt any kind of position, no matter how repugnant, to – in psychobabble terminology – “maintain a role” – that is, keep a job They will support torture, genocide, friggin’ cannibalism if that’s what it takes to keep that damned job.
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Yup, see the Stanford prison experiment.
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Yep, that and Millgram.
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It was pretty moronic, for at least two reasons, for the Florida AG office to argue that the ruling should not apply to already-decided cases. First, a party would not have standing to challenge the process unless they had already been given a death sentence via the process. Second, illustrating the first, the case (Hurst v. Florida) the Supreme Court heard and decided 8-1 against Florida involved a convicted murderer who had received the death penalty in an already decided case.
The red-state AGs sure do love wasting taxpayer money
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I can only hope that we’re sliding down the slippery slope to eliminating the death penalty in the US. It’s inhumane and senseless and accomplishes nothing except another death.
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Note to TPM headline writers — the Florida Supreme Court is not SCOTUS! I clicked on this article stunned to hear that SCOTUS had just struck down the “death penalty system” only to find we are talking about merely the Florida Supreme Court (which I guess you might acronymize SCOTSOFL — Supreme Court of the State of Florida — or maybe FLOSC), a non-trivial matter no doubt, but certainly not the same thing as an out-of-the blue SCOTUS decision striking down the death penalty nationwide.
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Yikes. That is pretty damn sloppy.
Actually, it says in the article that SCOTUS ruled against Florida’s specific death penalty system, and Florida’s own Supreme Court has made this delay in reaction to that. So, they haven’t struck it down nationwide (yet, unfortunately), but it is a SCOTUS ruling that Florida is responding to.