Smithers v. State
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the summary denial of a successive postconviction motion filed by death-warrant inmate Samuel Smithers, who argued that executing him at age 72 would constitute cruel and unusual punishment due to his advanced age. The Court held the claim was untimely and procedurally barred under rule 3.851(d) because the claim became ripe when Smithers turned 65 (his self-defined 'elderly' threshold), not upon signing of the death warrant, and that none of the rule's timeliness exceptions applied. The Court also held that, even if timely, the claim would fail because Florida's conformity clause precludes recognizing an Eighth Amendment age-based exemption beyond the juvenile (under-18) exemption recognized in Roper v. Simmons.
Key facts
- Samuel Smithers, a death-warrant inmate aged 72, filed a successive postconviction motion arguing that executing him at his advanced age would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
- The trial court summarily denied Smithers' postconviction motion, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed, holding the age-based claim was untimely and procedurally barred because it became ripe when Smithers reached age 65 (his self-defined elderly threshold), not when the death warrant was signed.
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Why it matters
This opinion reinforces, in the context of active death-warrant litigation, that age-based Eighth Amendment claims by elderly capital defendants are both time-barred if not raised promptly after the defendant reaches… — full analysis with a trial
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