Michael Jackson v. State of Florida

In 2007, Michael Jackson was convicted and sentenced to death for the double murder, alongside three co-defendants, of an elderly couple from Jacksonville, Florida. His jury sentenced him to death by a vote of eight jurors, with four dissenting. After his conviction, Mr. Jackson found God and began his devout journey of remorse and acceptance of responsibility. He fully confessed to his role and expressed his genuine remorse to the victims’ families, several of whom accepted his apology.

In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court declared non-unanimous sentencings unconstitutional. The court awarded new sentencing trials—trials that required a unanimous verdict—to Mr. Jackson and 144 other individuals on Florida’s death row who had also been sentenced to death with non-unanimous verdicts. In accord with this ruling, the Florida Legislature changed the death statute to require unanimity. In 2020, however, as Mr. Jackson waited in a long queue with others for his resentencing, the Florida Supreme Court changed its mind and ruled that non-unanimous juries would once again be permitted. Prosecutors then filed an unusual motion to “reinstate” the prior death sentence, which the Florida courts ultimately dismissed as meritless, but which further delayed Mr. Jackson’s resentencing into the global coronavirus pandemic and more years of delay.

In 2023, the Florida Legislature reinstated non-unanimous death sentences on the eve of Mr. Jackson’s long-awaited retrial. Weeks later, over the objection of Mr. Jackson’s attorneys urging that he remained entitled to a unanimous jury, he was sentenced to death by yet another non-unanimous jury. Ironically, the vote was the same as his verdict fifteen years earlier: only eight people voted for his execution, while four people still believed he should live.

The ACLU agreed to represent Mr. Jackson on the appeal of his new death sentence and filed his opening brief on appeal on May 17, 2024. His brief was supported by two amicus briefs, one of which addressed the ways in which Florida’s reversion to non-unanimity had turned the death penalty into a “quintessential game of chance,” while the other amicus brief emphasized the practical effect the non-unanimity law would have in silencing the already disproportionately low number of people of color—and particularly Black voices—in the jury room.

The case was argued in the Florida Supreme Court on December 12, 2024, and is currently awaiting decision.