Florida's second strike.

January 12, 2016

The NYTimes Editorial Board

For the second time in three Supreme Court terms, (click here) the justices have struck down a Florida law that treated the Constitution as little more than a speed bump on the road to quicker and easier death sentences.

In 2014, the justices struck down the state’s rigid, unscientific rule that skirted the court’s clear 2002 ban on executing intellectually disabled people.
On Tuesday, in an 8-to-1 decision written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court rejected a Florida law that required a trial judge, and not the jury, to decide whether to impose the death penalty....