FL death row population in limbo after Supreme Court ruled that death penalty requires unanimous jury verdict

NPR

The number of men and women currently waiting on Florida's death row is 384. Nearly all of them live just outside a town called Raiford, Fla.

But those men and women — the second largest death row population in the country — remain in limbo nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that death penalties require a unanimous jury verdict. What's in question is how that ruling will apply to existing convictions.

Two sets of tall chain link fences with coils of razor wire on the top surround Florida State Prison's whitewashed buildings. Ronald Clark is one of the inmates behind those fences.

"That's me at 21 years old," Clark says, looking at a picture of his younger self.

"Long hair, baby face. Looked about 15," he says with a laugh.

Clark is 48 now — serving a life sentence for one murder and facing the death penalty for another. But the Supreme Court's Hurst v. Florida decision has given him a glimmer of hope.

"Because the jury was not the sentencer — the judge was, which Hurst was found to be unconstitutional, because they say that the jury needs to be the sentencer, not the judge," Clark says. [MORE]