A Death Row inmate whose case led to the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting Florida’s death-penalty sentencing system is arguing that he should be sentenced to life in prison. An attorney for Timothy Lee Hurst filed a motion Friday in the Florida Supreme Court asking that it send the case to a lower court for imposition of a life sentence.
A challenge by Hurst led the U.S. Supreme Court last month to issue an 8-1 ruling that found Florida’s death-penalty sentencing system unconstitutional. The ruling said juries — not judges— should be responsible for imposing the death penalty and that Florida’s system of giving power to judges violated Hurst’s Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
State lawmakers are rushing to approve changes in the death-penalty system to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, which also has spurred a debate about how the ruling should apply to inmates who were sentenced under the law that was struck down.
Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer.
The motion filed Friday does not take issue with Hurst’s guilt but says he should be sentenced to life in prison because he has “fundamentally been denied his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial” in sentencing.
-source: The News Service of Florida