JAMES ARMANDO CARD, Petitioner, vs. JULIE L. JONES, etc., Respondent.
No. SC17-453
Supreme Court of Florida
[May 4, 2017]
PER CURIAM.
James Armando Card petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus seeking relief under Hurst v. Florida (Hurst v. Florida), 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016), and Hurst v. State (Hurst), 202 So. 3d 40 (Fla. 2016) petition for cert. filed, No. 16-998 (U.S. Feb. 13, 2017). We have jurisdiction. See
Card‘s sentence of death, which his penalty phase jury recommended by a vote of eleven to one, became final when the United States Supreme Court denied Card‘s petition for writ of certiorari on June 28, 2002. See Card v. State, 803 So. 2d 613 (Fla. 2001) cert. denied Card v. Florida, 536 U.S. 963 (2002); see also
Accordingly, we must determine whether the Hurst error in Card‘s penalty phase proceeding was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. “[I]n the context of a Hurst v. Florida error, the burden is on the State, as the beneficiary of the error, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury‘s failure to unanimously find all the facts necessary for imposition of the death penalty did not contribute to [the] death sentence.” Hurst, 202 So. 3d at 68. As applied to the right to a jury trial with regard to the factual findings necessary to impose a sentence of death, it must be clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have unanimously found that each aggravating factor was proven beyond a reasonable doubt, that the aggravating factors were sufficient to impose death, and that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances. See id. at 44.
We conclude that the State cannot establish that the Hurst error in Card‘s case was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In Card‘s case, the jury did not unanimously make the requisite factual findings and did not unanimously recommend a sentence of death. Instead, the jury recommended the sentence of
It is so ordered.
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, and QUINCE, JJ., concur. CANADY, POLSTON, and LAWSON, JJ., dissent.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND IF FILED, DETERMINED.
Original Proceeding – Habeas Corpus
Leor Veleanu, Federal Community Defender, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Billy H. Nolas, Chief, Capital Habeas Unit, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida,
for Petitioner
No appearance for Respondent
