{PDF EPUB} Simon Says by Gillian Colbert High Court: Florida Death Penalty System Is Unconstitutional

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Simon Says by Gillian Colbert High Court: Florida Death Penalty System Is Unconstitutional. WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) – The Governor, his attorney general, and court officials across the state are all reviewing the decision from the high court that could drastically change Florida’s death penalty system. In an 8-1 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the system Florida courts have used to put inmates on death row for decades, saying it wrongly gives judges more authority than the jury. The ruling centers around Timothy Hurst who murdered his manager at a restaurant in Pensacola back in 1998. In a 7-5 vote jurors voted in favor of death, and the judge made the final decision to give him the death penalty. In the majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough.” Attorney General Pam Bondi issued the following statement regarding Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling: “In light of today’s United States Supreme Court decision holding Florida’s capital sentencing procedure unconstitutional, the state will need to make changes to its death-sentencing statutes. I will work with state lawmakers this legislative session to ensure that those changes comply with the Court’s latest decision. The impact of the Court’s ruling on existing death sentences will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.” “I don’t think it’s a great surprise this decision came down putting Florida in line with other jurisdictions,” said attorney and former state and federal prosecutor David Weinstein. Weinstein told CBS4’s Natalia Zea that state lawmakers now have their work cut out for them. “Now the legislature has to do something about correcting the procedure,” he said. Howard Simon, president of the American Civil Liberties Union which advocates against the death penalty, says he has pushed the state to change the law for years. He now wants the 390 people currently on death row to be spared, in part to keep their cases from clogging up the court system. “The simplest thing would be to convert those death sentences in to sentences of life imprisonment,” Simon said. Weinstein does not believe they will all be eligible to have their death sentences reviewed. “If your case is deemed final on what’s called direct review, you’ve already exhausted your appeals, you’re not going to get another crack at the sentence,” Weinstein said. He also believes the families of the 91 people already executed under this system will have no legal recourse. “Up until today, every time the Florida death penalty’s been reviewed it’s been found to be constitutional, so there is no rightful relief,” Weinstein added. Courts across the country are still reviewing the potential impact of the ruling. A spokeswoman for Miami-Dade Courts released a statement to Zea, saying in part, “Any motions filed in the trial courts with respect to this ruling shall be addressed based on each case’s individual merits and the status of the law as it develops in the Florida Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court and any future legislative action.” In addition to the judge versus jury power divide, Florida is the only state in the nation that does not require a jury to vote unanimously to impose a death sentence. Simon says any new or amended law should change that. “How can it be in Florida that it takes a unanimous jury to find somebody guilty, but a simple majority to sentence somebody to death? Unless Florida does adopt a unanimous requirement for a death sentence, that’s only going to be the next U.S. Supreme Court case,” he said. Hurst’s case will now go back to the Florida Supreme Court for review, and possibly a new sentencing hearing. Unless the state legislature changes the law before that hearing, however, any sentence imposed would be based on the newly-ruled unconstitutional system. Late night TV comedy has 2 new acts. What do the founder of Nerdist and the voice of the E-Trade baby have in common? They're both heading to late-night TV. Comedians Chris Hardwick and Pete Holmes are premiering their shows, @midnight and The Pete Holmes Show , on Monday and Oct. 28, respectively. Both half-hour programs air Mondays through Thursdays at midnight ET/PT, and are preceded by late-night veterans of the time slot ( @midnight by The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central; Pete Holmes by Conan on TBS). That is where the similarities end for these newcomers, who hope to pump fresh blood into a late-night circuit dominated by the new guard (Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel) and old guard (Jay Leno, David Letterman) of veteran hosts. With the help of popular lead-ins, network executives and programmers are hoping to tap into the demographic of young-adult males who characteristically are up until the wee hours, where they're catered to by the likes of Adult Swim, Fox (on Saturdays) and ESPN. "I think that's where a lot of our audience is living and consuming content," says Kent Alterman, president of Comedy Central's content development and original programming. "Traditionally, prime-time is considered 8 to 11 (p.m.), but for the purposes of our own audience, it's probably more aptly described as 10 (p.m.) to 1 (a.m.)." Comedy Central has long wanted a nightly post- Colbert show , and Conan hasn't had a late-night companion since Lopez Tonight was canceled in 2011. Both Colbert and Conan have much higher concentrations of younger men than broadcast-network talk shows. Recruiting young fans is desirable for any network, says TBS President Michael Wright, who believes that Holmes' "contemporary, fresh" voice will be the perfect companion to the already young-skewing Conan . As a programmer, his job is to "give people what they want, but also give your audience what they don't know they want yet," he says , referring to Holmes. "It's a way to expand the brand, evolve, and grow." Popular comedian Pete Holmes will host a new late-night series on TBS. (Photo: Jeremy Freeman, TBS) So what could make or break these longtime stand-up comics as they settle into their new roles as late-night hosts? Opening monologues, for starters, which are "so important in defining who you are," but also in targeting a core audience, says Ron Simon, curator of television and radio at the Paley Center for Media in New York. "Sometimes it's best to develop a loyal fan base and then try to broaden out, or you can try to reach a larger audience from the beginning," Simon says. Despite the pressures of carrying an entire half-hour program, Holmes is trying not to sweat the ratings or narrow his appeal. "I think just by being honest and true to myself, we are going to skew younger," Holmes says of his show. "I'm just trying to make the things that make me laugh, which — I don't know what that says about me and my maturity — happens to be the same things that young people might enjoy." CHRIS HARDWICK, @MIDNIGHT. An outrageous hashtag on Twitter or a scathing review on Yelp: No social-media outlet will be shown mercy when Hardwick and his rotating panel of comedians poke fun at them on @midnight, from the folks at Funny or Die. The show is receiving an initial four-week commitment from the network. Using a game-show format in which the comic with the funniest jokes is declared the "winner" every night, Hardwick and his team will scour the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Vine and Yahoo! Answers for comedic material. Think of it as Jeopardy! for social media, but instead of guessing the correct answer, you get points for hilariously captioning an image or dreaming up a ridiculous hashtag for a tweet. "It's very British at heart," Hardwick, 41, says. "It's really just a structured reason to bring comics together to make fun of all the topical things they saw that day that came up in various social-media outlets." If anyone is up for the task, it's Hardwick, who founded the multimedia empire Nerdist Industries. With its website, podcasts, YouTube channel and social-media components, Nerdist caters to those passionate about pop and nerd culture. Hardwick's Comedy Central stand-up special, Chris Hardwick: Mandroid , aired last year, and he also has hosted Talking Bad and the current Talking Dead , talk-show companions to AMC hits Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead . Add Hardwick's years as a stand-up comic to the mix, and his progression to late-night TV was only a matter of time. After the pilot for a more tech-minded show was not picked up by Comedy Central about a year ago, the network asked if he'd like to host a new show produced by Funny or Die, the comedy website co-founded by Will Ferrell. Hardwick agreed, and helped develop what is now @midnight over the course of several months.He describes the show as the best comedic representation of his personality. "It's so much fun and so silly," Hardwick says. "It's all guilty-pleasure stuff that we're making fun of, so it should be a nice comedown from using your brain a lot on the Daily Show and Colbert . We want to hilariously glide people to sleep and into their beds at night." And what does the man who lampoons social media for a living actually enjoy on various outlets? For starters, he follows such celebrities as Anna Kendrick, Seth Rogen and Dean Norris on Twitter, along with "nerdier" choices including Joss Whedon, Buzz Aldrin and the Doctor Who official Twitter page.

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