The Florida Supreme Court ordered a new trial for a convicted killer who has spent more than four decades on death row for a racially charged murder during civil unrest in the Jacksonville area.
The unanimous decision, a rarity in death penalty cases in which convictions are overturned, came amid intense scrutiny of the death penalty in Florida. The state’s high court last week struck down a portion of a new death penalty law as unconstitutional because it does not require unanimous jury recommendations for the sentence to be imposed.
