Florida’s death penalty laws have changed. Could this change Wade Wilson’s sentence?

LEE COUNTY, Fla. – Florida’s death penalty laws have changed in the five years between Wade Wilson’s arrest for a double murder in Cape Coral and his final conviction.

On Tuesday, nine of the 12 jurors in the case recommended that Wilson be sentenced to death for the murder of Kristine Melton.

Ten of them demanded the death penalty for the murder of Diane Ruiz.

Despite the non-unanimous recommendations, Judge Nick Thompson, who will decide Wilson’s fate on July 23, can sentence Wilson to death under a 2023 law.

Maria DeLiberato, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, believes Wilson’s case could test Florida law.

“This is going to take decades,” DeLiberato said. “When (Wilson) was arrested, unanimity was the law. And then they basically changed the rules in the middle of his trial.”

If there is one consistent thing about Florida’s death penalty laws, it is inconsistency.

In 2016, the US Supreme Court overturned the death sentence against Timothy Lee Hurst. He had been found guilty of killing a co-worker with a box cutter in a fast-food restaurant in Pensacola in 1998.

A judge imposed the death penalty after the jury made a 7-5 recommendation.

The state legislature then passed a bill allowing a 10-2 jury recommendation, but the bill was overturned by the state Supreme Court.

From 2017 onwards, unanimous jury decisions were required.

But that changed in 2023 after a jury in Broward County failed to unanimously agree on a death sentence for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz.

Governor Ron DeSantis pushed for a new law that would make the death penalty 8 to 4 likely.

If Wilson is sentenced to death, he will join two other men from Southwest Florida on death row who were also sentenced after a non-unanimous recommendation.

Joseph Zieler was sent to death row last year for killing a young girl and her babysitter.

The jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 10 to 2.

Kevin Foster, the leader of the Lords of Chaos, a self-proclaimed militia group that killed a Lee County teacher, has been on death row since 1998.

His jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 9 to 3.