Patrick C. Hannon, Appellant v. State of Florida, Appellee; Patrick C. Hannon, Appellant, v. St — Pariente, J…

Summary

Justice Pariente dissented from the denial of post-conviction relief and would have applied the constitutional capital-sentencing rule retroactively to Hannon. She reasoned that Hannon's jury did not hear substantial mitigation because counsel failed to investigate and present it, making the jury's unanimous death recommendation insufficient to establish harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt. She also viewed the disparity between Hannon's death sentence and his codefendant's life sentence, together with allegedly deficient jury instructions, as reinforcing the arbitrariness and constitutional unreliability of the sentence.