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

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In Hurst v. Florida this Court struck down Florida’s longstanding capitalsentencing procedures because they authorized a judge, rather than a jury, to make factual findings that were the necessary precondition for a death sentence. On remand, the Florida Supreme Court held, as a state constitutional consequence, that a death verdict cannot be rendered without unanimous jury findings that at least one aggravating circumstance exists 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. Petitioner Thompson is in the latter cohort. The question he presents is 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.! 1 The Court denied certiorari on this precise issue in Hitchcock v. Florida, No. 17-6180; Kelley v. Florida, No. 17-1603; Fotopoulos v. Florida, No. 18-5060; Owen v. Florida, No. 18-6776; and Shere v. Florida, No. 18-7568, and it has denied certiorari in numerous other cases filed by death-row inmates affected by the Florida Supreme Court’s choice of June 24, 2002 as the cutoff date for retroactive relief under Hurst. See pages 23 24 infra. For the reasons stated at pages 24 30 infra, counsel respectfully believes that the specific constitutional claims raised by the current Questions Presented nevertheless warrant fresh consideration. i