New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck down an aspect of Florida’s capital punishment system on Tuesday, saying it did not give jurors a sufficient role in deciding whether defendants should be put to death.

Florida has about 400 inmates on death row, the second most in the nation after California. It was not clear how many prisoners will be entitled to new sentencing hearings. A 2004 Supreme Court decision indicated that, at least in federal court, rulings like the one issued Tuesday would not apply retroactively to inmates whose convictions are final.

The decision in Hurst v. Florida, No. 14-7505, concerned Timothy Lee Hurst, who was convicted of the 1998 murder of Cynthia Lee Harrison, a co-worker at a restaurant in Escambia County. He was sentenced to death in 2000.

After the Florida Supreme Court ordered Mr. Hurst resentenced, a second jury recommended a death sentence by a 7-to-5 vote in 2012. The judge then independently considered the evidence concerning punishment and concluded that Mr. Hurst should be executed.

That procedure was unconstitutional, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for seven justices in the new decision. “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death,” she wrote. “A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough.”

In 2002, in Ring v. Arizona, the Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the factual findings to support death sentences. Justice Sotomayor said the Ring decision doomed Florida’s approach. “The analysis the Ring court applied to Arizona’s sentencing scheme applies equally to Florida’s,” she wrote. “Like Arizona at the time of Ring, Florida does not require the jury to make the critical findings necessary to impose the death penalty. Rather, Florida requires a judge to find these facts.”

It made no difference, Justice Sotomayor wrote, that judges in Florida were required to take account of a jury’s advisory verdict.

Tuesday’s decision overruled two precedents upholding Florida’s capital punishment system. “Time and subsequent cases have washed away the logic” of those earlier decisions, Justice Sotomayor wrote. “The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant’s right to an impartial jury.”

She added, “This right required Florida to base Timothy Hurst’s death sentence on a jury’s verdict, not a judge’s fact-finding.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer voted with the majority but did not adopt its rationale. He said Florida’s approach violated the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment, rather than the Sixth.

This was, he wrote, a different road to the same destination. “No one argues that Florida’s juries actually sentence capital defendants to death — that job is left to Florida’s judges,” he wrote. “Like the majority, therefore, I would reverse the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court.”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented, saying that the court should have followed its precedents on the Florida system. In any event, he said, the Ring decision did not require striking down the system.

“In Ring, the jury found the defendant guilty of felony murder and did no more,” he wrote. “Under that system, the jury played no role in the capital sentencing process. The Florida system is quite different. In Florida, the jury sits as the initial and primary adjudicator of the factors bearing on the death penalty.”

Under Florida law, judges there must give capital sentencing recommendations “great weight,” Justice Alito wrote, meaning that “the trial court performs what amounts, in practical terms, to a reviewing function.”

When the case was argued in October, some justices asked about another aspect of the Florida system, which did not require a unanimous recommendation from the advisory jury.

Louisiana and Oregon allow non-unanimous verdicts in most criminal cases, but at least 10 of the 12 jurors must agree. The two states require unanimous verdicts in capital cases.

The Supreme Court upheld Oregon’s approach in 1972. At the argument, Justice Sotomayor suggested that the court should consider overruling that decision. Her opinion on Tuesday did not address the issue.