Petition of the day
on Nov 23, 2016 at 11:23 pm
The petition of the day is:
16-595
Issues: (1) Whether Alabama’s advisory jury death sentencing scheme, which is in all relevant aspects the same as the Florida scheme reviewed in Hurst v. Florida, violates the Sixth Amendment; (2) whether Hurst and the Sixth and Eighth Amendments require, at least, a unanimous jury recommendation for a sentence of death, as the Florida Supreme Court held on remand in Hurst; and (3) whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hurst applies retroactively to the petitioner’s case, and the cases of other condemned inmates sentenced under unconstitutional capital sentencing laws, where the new rule announced in Hurst implicates the fundamental right to a fair trial and substantially enhances fact-finding procedures.
