Florida Officials Have Until Friday to Figure Out How to Enforce Supreme Court Death Penalty Ruling

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the sentencing of a Florida man to death was unconstitutional. The next day, the state’s supreme court ordered officials to figure out how that ruling affected the case of another man, set to be executed in under a month.

BuzzFeed reports:

The brief order from the Florida high court came in the case of Cary Michael Lambrix, who currently is scheduled to be executed on Feb. 11. On Jan. 11, his lawyers had filed a petition for relief based on a similar argument to that made by Timothy Hurst at the U.S. Supreme Court.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Jan. 12 in Hurst’s case that Florida’s death sentencing law was unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment because it violated the right to a jury by making the imposition of a death sentence the responsibility of a judge and not a jury, the Florida Supreme Court amended its order in Lambrix’s case.

“The state will need to make changes to its death-sentencing statutes,” said Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement. “The impact of the court’s ruling on existing death sentences will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”