Florida

Florida bill proposes change on death penalty jury requirements after life sentence for Parkland shooter

Published

2 years ago

February 15, 2023

Florida bill proposes change on death penalty jury requirements after life sentence for Parkland shooter

PARKLAND, Fla. – For the primary time, we’re listening to what a Parkland homicide trial juror has to say about proposed modifications to Florida’s loss of life penalty legal guidelines.

These modifications have been drafted within the wake of the controversial divided jury advice of life as the suitable punishment for the convicted Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter.

In November, the life sentences have been imposed by the Parkland trial choose on convicted shooter Nikolas Cruz for the murders of 17 MSD employees and college students on Valentine’s Day in 2018 have been advisable by a dived jury.

Three members of the jury select life in jail over the loss of life penalty.

“The power was so heated that we wished to get out of that room,” stated Melody Vanoy, a juror who voted for all times in jail.

9 jurors advisable loss of life and a few are nonetheless haunted by the result.

One of many 9 who advisable loss of life as the suitable punishment requested Native 10 Information to not share her identify, however she wished the group to know one thing.

“These of us who have been in that room and tried, we actually did attempt, and that’s actually what I wish to get on the market,” she stated.

The decision advice was devastating to among the members of the family of the murdered.

“It isn’t proper what occurred to us, and if there was ever a case the place a person deserved the loss of life penalty, the Parkland assassin is the one,” stated Max Schachter, whose son Alex was one of many 17 victims of the taking pictures.

Within the wake, a proposed change to jury verdicts in loss of life penalty circumstances that, if handed, would toggle state regulation again to non-unanimous jury suggestions.

The invoice reads:

“If no less than eight jurors decide that the defendant ought to be sentenced to loss of life, the jury’s advice to the court docket shall be a sentence of loss of life.”

Of the 27 states that impose the loss of life penalty, the one state that doesn’t require a unanimous jury is Alabama, which requires a 10-to-2 majority.

Missouri and Indiana let a choose determine when there’s a divided jury.

“Florida could be an excessive outlier in that state of affairs going again,” stated College of Regulation Professor Craig Trocino.

As director of Miami regulation’s Innocence Clinic, Trocino’s work is concentrated on exonerating the wrongfully convicted in Florida.

“Florida leads the nation of loss of life row exonerations,” Trocino stated. “There have been 30 folks exonerated from loss of life row, and the overwhelming majority of these exonerations got here from, you guessed it, non-unanimous jury verdicts.”

Parkland was the deadliest mass taking pictures in the US to go earlier than a jury.

“It’s so horrific,” Trocino stated. “That’s why powerful, horrible circumstances like this are actually dangerous bellwethers of coverage as a result of there’s a lot emotion wrapped up into it.”

Trocino urges warning pegging a coverage change to 1 exceptionally egregious case.

“We actually wished this man to get the loss of life penalty. He didn’t. So what will we do? Do we alter the whole loss of life penalty statute to make it simpler for somebody who will not be as culpable as him to get the loss of life penalty?” requested Trocino. “In case you are asking me as an individual, I get it, in case you are asking me as a lawyer, if a petty theft goes to require a unanimous jury verdict, so ought to someone who’s going to be put to loss of life require a unanimous jury verdict.

The subsequent Florida legislative session resumes in march.

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Florida

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Published

40 minutes ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Florida State football had an embarrassing 2024 campaign where it finished with a 2-10 record. This is not the expectation of what the Seminoles are all about.

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Head football coach Mike Norvell understood the urgency as he could not allow the program to snowball into a laughing stock after a productive 13-1 season in 2023. Norvell was heading into a pivotal sixth season with his job on the line.

As a result, he went out and hired a ton of new coaches on his staff, including Gus Malzahn, Tim Harris Jr., Herb Hand, Tony White, Terrance Knighton, and Evan Cooper. This was uncharted territory for Norvell since he had never had to fire multiple coaches like that.

Nonetheless, we were wondering how the Seminoles’ 2025 recruiting class would play out with new coaches as well as the struggling year in 2024.

The recruiting class did well, and it finished with the 20th-best in the 247Sports Composite rankings (prospects can still sign in February). In this article, I want to highlight three of the most underrated signees from Florida State’s 2025 recruiting class.

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U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Published

9 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Noah Kent is heading home.

The 2024 U.S. Amateur runner-up is transferring to Florida, he announced Saturday. The sophomore at Iowa, whose hometown is Naples, Florida, entered the transfer portal earlier this month, and he made his decision to join coach J.C. Deacon and the 2023 national champions come next fall.

Because of NCAA rules, Kent won’t be eligible to compete for Florida until the 2025-26 season, but he can finish his sophomore year with the Hawkeyes. This fall, he placed in the top 13 all four tournaments, his best finish being a T-5 at the Fighting Irish Classic.

And, of course, he has a tee time at Augusta National Golf Club in the spring.

Kent will essentially be the fourth member of Florida’s 2025 signing class, which ranked second in the country on signing day. He’ll join a talented roster that includes Parker Bell, Mathew Kress and Jack Turner, though with new NCAA roster limits coming, there’s bound to be some unprecedented roster turnover in college golf before the start of the 2025-26 season.

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State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

Published

16 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

There are two NHL teams in Florida: the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

They are separated by about 250 miles and have been fierce rivals since the Panthers joined the NHL for the 1993-94 season. The Lightning joined the League a season earlier.

Florida (21-11-2) and Tampa Bay (18-10-2) meet for the first time this season at Amalie Arena in Tampa on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, CRIPPS, SN, TVAS).

The teams have played each other 157 times in the regular season; the Panthers have gone 77-51-19, and the Lightning are 70-64-13. There have been 10 ties.

For years, the rivalry was a parochial affair, deeply important to hockey fans in the state but under the radar nationally. Lately, though, Florida supremacy has often meant NHL supremacy.

The Panthers are the reigning Stanley Cup champions and defeated the Lightning in five games in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round last season to start that title march. They reached the Stanley Cup Final two seasons ago, going on a miracle run before losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. The season before that, they won the Presidents’ Trophy with an NHL-best 122 points but lost to the Lightning in a second-round sweep, marking the second straight time that their noisy neighbors ended their season.

The Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021 before reaching a third straight Final in 2022, losing to the Colorado Avalanche. Tampa Bay won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2018-19.

This season, each team is on course for another appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and has a point percentage of better than .600.

So which team has the merits to claim bragging rights in this all-Florida showdown as the rivals face off for the first time this season? That’s the question debated by NHL.com senior writers Amalie Benjamin and Dan Rosen in the latest installment of State Your Case.

Benjamin: Let’s lay out what the Lightning have accomplished in their 32-season history: They’ve won the Stanley Cup three times, becoming the first team from Florida to win it when they took the championship in 2004. But that doesn’t come close to what they’ve accomplished during the past 11 seasons, starting in 2013-14, when they became a powerhouse. They’ve been to the Stanley Cup Playoffs 10 times in those 11 seasons, making the Stanley Cup Final in a whopping four of them. Let me repeat that: Four trips to the Cup Final in the past 11 seasons, winning twice, in 2020 and 2021. And if that’s not enough, they made two more trips to the Eastern Conference Final, in 2016 and 2018. Forget Florida’s team. They’re the team of the past decade in the entire NHL.

Rosen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what have you done for me lately? Florida’s team fluctuates. It was the Lightning. It is the Panthers. They’ve got the Stanley Cup. They went to the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row. Sure, a few years ago, this wasn’t even a debate. Florida’s team, the Panthers? Please. No shot. Even the top executives with the Panthers would tell you that. But things change. With success come the riches. Just think about the past three seasons for the Panthers: Presidents’ Trophy winners in 2021-22, Stanley Cup Final in 2022-23, Stanley Cup champions in 2023-24. The Lightning lost in the 2022 Cup Final, lost in the first round in six games the next season and lost in the first round in five games to the Panthers last season. Florida’s team is Florida.

Benjamin: OK, sure, you have a point. Florida has done pretty darn well lately. But let’s see how history will judge the state of Florida and its hockey teams. Hall of Famers? The Lightning have got ’em. Though Steven Stamkos has moved on to the Nashville Predators, the Hall of Fame is going to come calling, and the forward will go in as a member of the Lightning. Add in coach Jon Cooper, forward Nikita Kucherov, defenseman Victor Hedman and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and you’re talking at least five future Hall of Famers on a single team. That’s not just good, that’s historically good. It’s a group whose names are synonymous with winning, with the Stanley Cup, with the state of Florida. That’s powerful. That says the Lightning win this debate, no question.

Rosen: I have a question. Is Aleksander Barkov not paving his way to the Hall of Fame? Is Sergei Bobrovsky, with a Stanley Cup ring, 400-plus wins and two Vezina Trophy wins as the NHL’s best goalie, not a lock for the Hall of Fame? Is Paul Maurice, who could finish his career with at least the second-most coaching wins of all time, along with his Stanley Cup ring, not also a lock for the Hall of Fame? In the way-too-early department, could Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart be future Hall of Famers? I lied. That’s four questions. But you get the point. You brought up the Hall of Fame and I countered. That’s why the Lightning do not win this debate without question. Could they win it? Yes, certainly, if we were having this debate in 2023. It’s almost 2025. It’s a different world. It’s the Panthers’ world, at least in Florida. The Lightning are just living in it. At least the sun is still shining on them too.

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