No. 22-6725

Michael A. Gordon v. Florida

Lower Court: Florida
Docketed: 2023-02-08
Status: Denied
Type: IFP
IFP
Tags: capital-sentencing death-penalty eighth-amendment fourteenth-amendment proportionality-review pulley-v-harris
Latest Conference: 2023-03-31
Question Presented (from Petition)

Has the Florida Supreme Court by abandoning comparative proportionality review in death penalty appeals - - while dismantling other safeguards, and in view of the proliferation of additional statutory aggravating factors (to the point where nearly all first-degree murder defendants are death-eligible) - - misapplied this Court's decision in Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37 (1984) and rendered Florida's capital sentencing scheme arbitrary, capricious, unreliable, and violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Has the Florida Supreme Court by abandoning comparative proportionality review in death penalty appeals while dismantling other safeguards, and in view of the proliferation of additional statutory aggravating factors (to the point where nearly all first-degree murder defendants are death-eligble) misapplied this Court's decision in Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37 (1984) and rendered Florida's capital sentencing scheme arbitrary, capricious, unreliable, and violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?

Docket Entries

2023-04-03
Petition DENIED.
2023-03-16
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/31/2023.
2023-03-14
Reply of petitioner Michael Gordon filed. (Distributed)
2023-03-02
Brief of respondent Florida in opposition filed.
2023-02-02
Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due March 10, 2023)
2022-12-28
Application (22A575) granted by Justice Thomas extending the time to file until February 14, 2023.
2022-12-19
Application (22A575) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from January 15, 2023 to February 15, 2023, submitted to Justice Thomas.

Attorneys

Michael Gordon
Steven L. BolotinOffice of the Public Defender, Petitioner
State of Florida
Carolyn M. SnurkowskiOffice of the Attorney General, Respondent