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| U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Florida Execution Stay |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/12/2002 |
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Executions can remain on hold in Florida while the state's high court considers the death penalty law's constitutionality, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. Wednesday's decision rebuffed a plea from lawyers for the state, who had asked that stays of execution granted by the state Supreme Court be lifted. The state justices issued two indefinite stays Monday, delaying the executions of Linroy Bottoson and Amos King while they consider a constitutional challenge to Florida's death penalty law. They scheduled oral arguments on the challenge for Aug. 21. At stake could be the death sentences of 371 people on Florida's death row. Whichever side loses in the state Supreme Court is sure to challenge the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The state justices are considering the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month in an Arizona case that the death penalty laws there and in four other states were unconstitutional. That ruling said juries and not judges must decide facts needed to warrant death penalties. But it was silent about similar laws in Florida and three other states where juries play limited roles but judges make the final decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court had issued stays for Bottoson and King while it was considering the Arizona case but lifted them a few days later. In his plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the state court's stays of execution, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth argued that the state court had no authority to question the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law. But lawyers for Bottoson, King and other death row inmates argued that when the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its earlier stays, it did nothing more than send the issue back to the state courts to work out whether its ruling applied to Florida. In its unsigned orders Wednesday, the nation's high court refused Butterworth's request to lift the stay. |
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