Supreme Court Asked To Block Florida’s Death Row Fast Track Law

June 27, 2013

Attorneys representing Death Row inmates want the Florida Supreme Court to block the controversial “Timely Justice Act” that is intended to reduce final delays in carrying out the death penalty.In a challenge filed Wednesday, the attorneys contend that sections of the law signed June 14 by Gov. Rick Scott are unconstitutional.

They allege, in part, that the law would violate the separation of powers by imposing obligations on lawyers that conflict with judicially-determined rules. They also say it would alter the court’s authority to govern capital post-conviction litigation and would violate due process and equal protection.

“It is clear that, when the Legislature restricts this court’s authority to reach final ruling on constitutional matters by creating a time-certain limit on capital litigation and rejects procedural vehicles recognized by this court as necessary components to ensuring the constitutionality of capital convictions and death sentences, it violates this court’s authority to be the ultimate interpreter of the Florida Constitution,” said the lawsuit.

Scott’s office has repeatedly contended that the law, which takes effect July 1, doesn’t “fast-track” the death penalty process and will not increase the risk of executing innocent people as some critics have argued. Instead, Scott’s office says the bill makes “technical amendments to current law and provides clarity and transparency to legal proceedings.”

The measure includes several changes in the death-penalty process. As an example, the act requires the clerk of the Florida Supreme Court to notify the governor when a Death Row inmate’s state and federal court appeals have been completed. The governor would then have 30 days to issue a death warrant if the executive clemency process has finished. The warrant would require that the execution be carried out within 180 days.

In the conclusion of the new challenge, the attorneys noted that during the House floor debate some legislators discussed that the law would likely result in additional delays “by creating constitutional deficiencies in the system, and that courts would have to issue stays to review the act’s functioning.”

by The News Service of Florida

Comments

4 Responses to “Supreme Court Asked To Block Florida’s Death Row Fast Track Law”

  1. David Huie Green on June 29th, 2013 6:55 pm

    REGARDING:
    “Our country is so soft! I this were in China, the inmates would have been put to death after two weeks!”

    Very likely true, if they waited that long and didn’t just kill them while taking them into custody.

    Now the question to ask yourself: Do I want to pattern myself after Communist China?

    AND
    “the method of execution should go back to being harsh. Make it painful and something to be avoided, instead of a needle and going to sleep after 20+ years in prison fighting conviction.”

    Much depends on your goal.
    If you want to torture killers, that is the way to go.

    If you want to kill killers, you want to make it as painless as humanly possible so the squeamish won’t mind sending them to the final judgment. Asphyxiation by changing the air in their cell to nitrogen would be the most painless method of all.

    If you want to hold out hope for the ones who fear the killer didn’t really kill or did kill but can be rehabilitated, take the suspended animation route: Drop them in a vat of liquid nitrogen and keep them on ice until some future generation can figure out a way to revive as non killers or they decide they just don’t care and let them thaw and rot.

    David for facing facts
    and using nitrogen
    by any means necessary

  2. baldhead on June 28th, 2013 10:43 pm

    Our country is so soft! I this were in China, the inmates would have been put to death after two weeks!

  3. Mike J. on June 28th, 2013 9:34 am

    Mick, I agree totally with you! AND I’ll go one step further: the method of execution should go back to being harsh. Make it painful and something to be avoided, instead of a needle and going to sleep after 20+ years in prison fighting conviction.

  4. mick on June 27th, 2013 5:00 pm

    Guilty and convicted death row inmates that spend 20+ years on the taxpayer’s dime being sheltered, clothed and fed is ridiculous…these individuals gave up any and all rights of a law abiding society when they chose to commit the crimes that would warrant the death penalty…clean out death rows, and impose harsher penalties across the board…send a message to all criminals that their actions are not going to be tolerated…and eliminate the so called rights of these individuals that never even considered not for one minute the rights of their victims…

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