What to Know: Sentencing Practices and the Death Penalty

Key FactsOnly three states — Alabama, Delaware, Florida — per­mit­ted judi­cial over­ride, with the prac­tice rou­tine­ly occur­ring only in Alabama. Of Alabama’s six death-row exon­er­a­tions, three involved judi­cial over­ride, two oth­ers involved non-unan­i­mous jury ver­dicts for death, and the sixth waived jury sen­tenc­ing. In Florida, 28 of the state’s 30 death row exonerees were either sen­tenced to death by a non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion or by judi­cial over­ride. In October 2016, the Florida Supreme Court declared the state’s sen­tenc­ing law uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and said una­nim­i­ty was required. Illustrative CasesIn 2007, Michael James Jackson was sen­tenced to death by a Florida jury who vot­ed 8 – 4 for death.