"The Eighth Amendment's Time to Shine; Previewing Florida's Imminent Constitutional Crisis in Capital Punishment"

The title of ths post is the tile of this new piece authored by Melanie Kalmanson now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

In April 2023, Florida Governor DeSantis enacted legislation that lowers the jury vote necessary to impose a sentence of death in the state to 8-4.  The new statute removes the procedural safeguards that were implemented after the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2016 that Florida's capital sentencing scheme violated defendants' right to jury trial under the Sixth Amendment.

Litigation about the constitutionality and application of the new statute has already started and will likely continue for a while until the full effect of the statute is determined.  This Essay previews some of the issues that will be litigated and forecasts that the Eighth Amendment will be the star of the show in this Act of the play on Florida’s constitutional crises in capital punishment.