Franklin v. Florida

Issues: (1) Whether the per se harmless-error rule adopted by the Florida Supreme Court—which deems errors harmless in every case in which the capital defendant’s pre-Hurst advisory jury, after being instructed that the findings of fact and sentencing decision would be made by the judge alone, recommended the death penalty by a unanimous vote, rather than a majority vote—violates the Supreme Court’s precedents prohibiting state courts from mechanically denying federal constitutional claims on harmless-error grounds without first conducting an individualized review of the record as a whole; and (2) whether the per se harmless-error rule violates the Eighth Amendment doctrine discouraging reliance on decisions made by jurors whose sense of responsibility for a death sentence was diminished.