It just got a lot easier to send a convicted killer to death row in Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death penalty reform law Thursday that allows judges to impose capital punishment as long as eight out of 12 jurors recommend it. Before the new law was passed, juries had to be unanimous in their recommendations, allowing a single juror to derail the state’s efforts to obtain a death sentence.

The push for a change in the law intensified last year after a jury failed to reach a unanimous decision in the case of the Parkland high school mass shooter. Nikolas Cruz was spared execution and sentenced to life in prison after only nine of 12 jurors recommended death for the 2018 rampage where he killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Before 2016, that would have been enough. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, struck down the state’s death penalty after finding it gave too much power to judges and not enough to juries. The state responded with a whirlwind of changes, culminating in a requirement that made it difficult, but not impossible, to secure a death sentence.

Cruz was among those spared by Broward juries, as were convicted killers Jacqueline Luongo, Richard Andres and Jonathan Gordon. Even convicted cop killers Bernard Forbes, Andre Delancy and Eloyn Ingraham were sentenced to life instead of death.

All would have qualified for the death penalty under the new law.

“Once a defendant in a capital case is found guilty by a unanimous jury, one juror should not be able to veto a capital sentence,” DeSantis said in a news release. “I’m proud to sign legislation that will prevent families from having to endure what the Parkland families have and ensure proper justice will be served in the state of Florida.”

Defense lawyers said while the old law placed an undue burden on prosecutors seeking death, the new law removes the safeguards that protected the convicted from vindictive punishment.

“A death sentence is the most severe punishment that can be imposed,” said Lindsay Chase, president of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The new law in Florida regarding death sentences is the least strict standard in the entire United States … This new law now makes it even easier for the wrongfully accused to be wrongfully sentenced to death.”

Joe Nascimento, a lawyer on the team that defended Pablo Ibar, said the new law would have put his client back on death row on a 9-3 vote. Ibar was a death row inmate granted a new trial and convicted again in 2019. He was sentenced to life in prison. “It’s just shocking to see such a step in the wrong direction,” Nascimento said. “It’s clearly a reaction to what happened to Nikolas Cruz.”

For the families of the Parkland victims, the new law corrects the imbalance that unjustly favored convicted killers.

Jurors still need to find guilt unanimously, beyond a reasonable doubt, said Gena Hoyer, mother of Stoneman Douglas victim Luke Hoyer. And jurors still need to be unanimous in finding the existence of aggravating factors. “I believe the balance has been corrected,” she said.

What’s new, said her husband, Tom Hoyer, is that a single juror can no longer impose a personal agenda on the justice system.

“Those people can still vote their conscience,” he said. “It just can’t outweigh everyone else’s.”

Rafael Olmeda can be reached at or 954-356-4457. Follow him on Twitter @rolmeda.