State: Ruling muddies death penalty

TALLAHASSEE -- At least seven Florida death row inmates, including one from Pinellas County, could have their sentences overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court declared Monday that juries, not judges, must decide if a defendant lives or dies.

The 7-2 ruling marks the court's second major death penalty decision in a week and invalidates the death sentencing procedures in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, states where judges decide death sentences.

The decision also raised doubts about sentencing procedures in four other states, including Florida, where juries recommend life or death but a judge makes the final call.

The decision came just days after the court decided that executing the mentally retarded is cruel and unusual punishment.

"The Supreme Court, in less than a week, has certainly turned the death penalty on its head," said Jerry Blair, state attorney from Live Oak and president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association. "I think it's likely to open the floodgates of litigation."

That's exactly what Justice Sandra Day O'Connor feared. In a dissenting opinion, O'Connor wrote that previous decisions already had thrown "countless criminal sentences into doubt," straining the courts. Monday's decision, she added, "is only going to add to these already serious effects."

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and government officials said the decision's ultimate effect on Florida isn't yet clear, but all agreed at least seven inmates might get another shot at life because judges overruled jury recommendations. Three more are on death row because a judge ignored a jury recommendation for life on one count but imposed the jury's call for death for other crimes.

"At first blush, it appears that this might only affect those cases where there was a jury override, where a jury recommended life and a judge imposed the death penalty," said Elizabeth Hirst, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush. "That's a very small number."

But defense attorneys who represent death row inmates think the decision could affect the sentences of all 370 inmates now on death row.

"My interpretation of the case is that it applies to every death penalty case," said Peter Cannon of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a state-funded organization that represents death row inmates.

Cannon has worked on the case of Anthony Neal Washington, convicted in 1992 of the 1989 rape, beating and murder of 93-year-old Alice Berdat of Pinellas Park. A Pinellas jury recommended life, but Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer sentenced Washington to death.

These days, Florida judges rarely overrule juries because the state Supreme Court has reversed many such decisions.

But in her 1992 sentencing order outlining the "aggravating factors" in the case, Schaeffer said Washington's crimes were so heinous, his criminal record so long and the expectation he could be rehabilitated so slim that state law demanded he pay for the crime with his life.

Washington's attorneys have appealed, saying the jury's recommendation should have been the final word.

Michael Radelet agrees. The University of Colorado sociology professor and Florida death penalty expert said the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee to a jury of one's peers means the jury must make the call to sentence someone to death, not just recommend that it be done. State law also requires that the aggravating factors in a crime outweigh any mitigating factors. In Florida, a judge balances those factors, not the jury, Radelet said.

"The Florida jury hears testimony, but they don't make that finding. The jury simply votes life and death, and they are gone," Radelet said.

That's a distinction without a difference, Blair said. "I think the jury is performing that role. . . . The jury is instructed that they must consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances," Blair said.

It was not immediately clear what will happen to inmates in those states where death sentences were invalidated or questioned. Some lawyers have said death row inmates' sentences could be commuted to life in prison, as was done when the Supreme Court put a temporary halt to the death penalty in the 1970s. Or the inmates could be resentenced, with some receiving death again.

Florida officials and defense attorneys said they hope to get guidance on Thursday, when the court is expected to rule on two Florida death sentences it delayed pending this decision.

In January, the Supreme Court delayed the execution of Amos King, convicted of raping and stabbing to death a 68-year-old Tarpon Springs widow, Natalie Brady, in 1977. In February, the court ordered a stay for Linroy Bottoson, on death row for the 1979 murder of Eatonville postmaster Catherine Alexander.

In both Bottoson's and King's cases, their juries recommended death sentences.

The case decided on Monday, Ring vs. Arizona, took its name from Timothy Ring, convicted of murder and armed robbery in a 1994 armored-car heist in Phoenix. The driver was shot to death, and more than $800,000 in cash and checks was stolen.

The decision, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reverses the Arizona Supreme Court and sends it back to state court "for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."

Joining Ginsburg in the majority were Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. O'Connor was joined in her dissent by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

The court's back-to-back decisions have political watchers wondering if the death penalty could become a hot issue in the Florida governor's race. A Bush spokeswoman said his office was carefully reviewing the decision.

Democratic candidate Bill McBride, who has called for a moratorium on all executions in Florida, said the decision only adds to the confusion surrounding the death penalty.

"Given all these ambiguities and real and potential mistakes, it is clear: There needs to be a better understanding of what we're doing," said campaign spokesman Alan Stonecipher. He said McBride does not oppose the death penalty.

Democratic candidate Daryl Jones, a Miami state senator, has long criticized Florida's system for death sentences, which requires a bare majority of seven members of a 12-member jury to impose death. Jones said Florida should copy most other death penalty states that require unanimous jury verdicts.

A spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Janet Reno said she personally opposes the death penalty but applied it when warranted. She was traveling and could not be reached for further comment.

-- Times staff writers Steve Bousquet, Wes Allison and Christopher Goffard contributed to this report, which includes information from Times wires.

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