Whether the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of Equal Protection and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of capricious capital sentencing impose limits upon a state court's power to declare unconventional rules of retroactivity, and whether those limits were transgressed here

QUESTION PRESENTED In Hurst v. Florida this Court struck down Florida’s longstanding capital-sentencing procedures because they authorized a judge, rather than a jury, to make the factual findings that were necessary for a death sentence. On remand, the Florida Supreme Court held that a death verdict could not be rendered without unanimous jury findings of at least one aggravating circumstance and that the sum of aggravation is sufficient to outweigh any mitigating circumstances and to warrant death. The Florida Supreme Court then held that it would apply both the federal and state jury-trial rights retroactively to inmates whose death sentences had not become final as of June 24, 2002 (the date of Ring v. Arizona, precursor of Hurst) but that it would deny relief to inmates whose death sentences were final on that date. Mr. Owen presents the following question: Whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of Equal Protection and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of capricious capital sentencing impose limits upon a state court’s power to declare unconventional rules of retroactivity, and whether those limits were transgressed here. i