TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Oct. 24 (UPI) -- In a unanimous ruling Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the way in which the state hands down death sentences.
The ruling that the death penalty as administered under Florida law is constitutional opens the door to the resumption of executions in the state.
In its ruling, the court denied the appeals of convicted murderers Linroy Bottoson and Amos Lee King. Their appeals were based on a June 24 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an Arizona case that invalidated death penalty sentencing procedures there and in four other states because the death sentence was imposed by a judge in violation of the Sixth Amendment.
Florida law requires juries to make a recommendation of death by a majority of the 12-member jury. The final sentence is handed down by the judge, who must take the jury's recommendation into consideration.
Attorneys for Bottoson and King argued this sentencing method violated their clients' Sixth Amendment rights because the jury recommendation need not be unanimous and can be overruled by the judge.
Lawyers for the state argued that a jury's guilty verdict makes defendants subject to the death penalty, satisfying Sixth Amendment considerations.
In its ruling, the Florida Supreme Court pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld Florida's death penalty sentencing statute over the past 25 years.
The only executions that have been held in Florida since this appeal was filed are those of two convicted murderers who waived their rights to appeal and volunteered to die.
Female serial killer Airleen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection Oct. 9 and Hialeah, Fla., child killer Rigoberto Sanchez Velazco was executed Oct. 2.
The stays of execution given to Bottoson and King will expire in 30 days, pending the resolution of any other appeals. The court said it would not accept motions for rehearing.
The trial jury voted unanimously to recommend death for King in the 1977 rape and stabbing death of Natalie Brady, 68, in Tarpon Springs, while he was staying in a work-release prison.
Bottoson was convicted of killing Eatonville postmistress Catherine Alexander, 74, in 1979. After robbing her and holding her captive, he stabbed her repeatedly and killed her by running her over with a car. The jury recommended death 10-2.
