Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Steven Alexander Mantecon, Petitioner v. Florida

No. __________

_________________________________________

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________________________________

STEVEN ALEXANDER MANTECON,

Petitioner,

v.

THE STATE OF FLORIDA,

Respondent.

______________________________________________

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

to Florida’s First District Court of Appeal

______________________________________________

PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

_______________________________________

JESSICA J. YEARY

Public Defender

Second Judicial Circuit of Florida

BARBARA BUSHARIS

Assistant Public Defender

Counsel of Record for Petitioner

Member of the Bar of this Court

Second Judicial Circuit of Florida

301 S. Monroe St., Suite 401

Tallahassee, FL 32301

(850) 606-8500

victor.holder@flpd2.com

QUESTION PRESENTED

1. Whether the Sixth Amendment requires a twelve-person jury to try a criminal

defendant accused of a felony offense.

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

QUESTIONS PRESENTED ....................................................................................... 2

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................................................................... 4

JURISDICTION…………………………………………………………….……....6

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS INVOLVED………...…………………….....7

STATEMENT OF THE CASE………………………………………………….......8

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION……………………………………9

Florida violated Mantecon’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment

rights when Mantecon was convicted by a jury of less than twelve

members…………………………………………………………...…….…..9

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….....23

INDEX TO APPENDICES………………………………………………………...24

3

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

CASES

PAGE(S)

Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972)…………….……........................10, 18, 19

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000)………………….……………..13, 14

Khorrami v. Arizona, 143 S.Ct. 22 (2022)………………………………………...19

Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223 (1978)………………………………….........11-17

Blair v. State, 698 So. 2d 1210 (Fla. 1997)………………………………………..15

Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004)………………………………...........14

Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U.S. 130 (1979)……………………………………...12, 13

Cunningham v. Florida, 602 U.S. ___ (2024)………………………………….19-21

Gonzalez v. State, 982 So. 2d 77 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008)…………………………15-17

Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356 (1972)………………………………..10, 18, 19

Lessard v. State, 232 So. 3d 13 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017)………………………….18, 19

Mallet v. State, 280 So. 3d 1091 (Fla. 2019)………………………………………..6

Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276 (1930)……………………………………...20

Phillips v. State, 316 So. 3d 779 (Fla. 1st DCA 2021)…………………………….19

Mantecon v. State, 339 So. 3d 506 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022)………………………...6, 8

Ramos v. Louisiana, 140 S.Ct. 1390 (2020)…………………………………...18, 19

Thompson v. State of Utah, 170 U.S. 343 (1898)……………………………...20, 22

4

Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 (1970)……………………….………………..9-21

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

PAGE(S)

Sixth Amendment, United States Constitution………..........................................6-22

Fourteenth Amendment, United States Constitution………………….................6-22

5

PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Steven Alexander Mantecon petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the

decision of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal.

OPINIONS BELOW

The decision of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal was rendered

September 27, 2023. See Mantecon v. State, 339 So. 3d 506 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022).

A copy of the decision is attached as Appendix A. A motion for rehearing was

denied by the First District on November 29, 2023. A copy of the order denying is

attached as Appendix B.

Mantecon petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to

exercise its discretionary jurisdiction to review his case, but on April 18, 2024, the

Florida Supreme Court declined to exercise jurisdiction. A copy of the Florida

Supreme Court’s order is attached as Appendix C.

JURISDICTION

Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed Mantecon’s conviction, and

held that Mantecon’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were not violated

when he was tried by a jury made up of less than twelve people. The Florida

Supreme Court declined to exercise its discretionary review jurisdiction in this case.

The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 28 U.S.C. ' 1257(a).

6

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS INVOLVED

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the

right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of

the state and district wherein the crime shall have been

committed, which district shall have been previously

ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and

cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the

witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for

obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the

assistance of counsel for his defense.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and

subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the

United States and of the state wherein they reside. No

state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge

the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United

States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life,

liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny

to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection

of the laws.

7

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The State of Florida charged Mantecon with one count of second degree

murder with a firearm, two counts of shooting into an occupied vehicle, ten counts

of aggravated assault, and two counts of felony criminal mischief (R 13-15)1.

Under Florida law, Mantecon faced up to life in prison if convicted as charged.

Mantecon was tried by a jury made up of six members. Mantecon was convicted of

each offense as charged except for the two criminal mischief counts (R 363-70).

Mantecon was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole (R 477).

Mantecon did not raise the 12-person jury issue in the trial court.

Mantecon

appealed his convictions to Florida’s First District Court of Appeal where he argued

that his Sixth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment right to a trial by jury was

violated where he was tried by a jury of less than twelve members. The First

District affirmed Mantecon’s conviction and sentence in Mantecon v. State, 339 So.

3d 506 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022). The Florida Supreme Court then declined to exercise

its discretionary jurisdiction to review the Mantecon decision.

1 Reference to the record on appeal will be in the form of “R” followed by the

appropriate page number, all in parentheses.

8

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

Florida violated Mantecon’s Sixth and Fourteenth

Amendment rights when Mantecon was convicted by

a jury of less than twelve members.

This case tests whether the Court’s holding in Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S.

78 (1970), that the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury does not compel a

twelve-member jury is still tenable following the Court’s more recent decisions in

which it has discarded the functional approach to jury trials in favor of the practice

of trial by jury as it existed at common law.

In Williams, the Court dismissed the common law practice of impaneling a

jury of twelve members when it determined “that the 12-man panel is not a

necessary ingredient of ‘trial by jury,’ and that [the] refusal to impanel more than

the six members provided for by Florida law did not violate [a defendant’s] Sixth

Amendment rights as applied to the States through the Fourteenth [Amendment].”

Williams at 86. The Court undertook a functional analysis of jury size, concluding

that twelve is no better than six for reaching a reliable verdict in criminal cases. Id.

at 99-100.

Thereafter, the Court again rejected historical norms in assessing the issue of

jury unanimity in state court criminal proceedings. Much like its analysis in

Williams, the Court concluded that jury unanimity is not required under the Sixth

9

Amendment – at least when juries are ten or larger – because it does not materially

contribute to the exercise of [jurors’] commonsense judgment.” Apodaca v. Oregon,

406 U.S. 404, 410 (1972). Applying a “functional” approach again, a plurality

“perceive[d] no difference between juries required to act unanimously and those

permitted to convict or acquit by votes of 10 to two or 11 to one” such that “the

interest of the defendant in having the judgment of his peers interposed between

himself and the officers of the State who prosecute and judge him is equally well

served” whether unanimity is required or not. Id. at 410-11. The various opinions,

concurring and dissenting, reflected no consensus on a coherent analytical

approach.

In Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356, 364 (1972), the Court addressed a

tiered jury system where “less serious crimes [are] tried by five jurors with

unanimous verdicts, more serious crimes required the assent of nine of 12 jurors,

and for the most serious crimes a unanimous verdict of 12 jurors is stipulated.” In

upholding a 9-3 verdict, the Court concluded that the differential jury system served

a rational interest, the state legislature “obviously intend[ing] to vary the difficulty

of proving guilt with the gravity of the offense and the severity of the punishment.”

Id. at 365.

10

The Court invalidated a five-member jury in Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223

(1978), but no coherent framework emerged for analyzing jury size under the Sixth

Amendment. Two justices (Blackmun and Stevens) posited that juries of less than

six members substantially threatened the constitutional guarantee of the jury trial

right, notwithstanding the cost-saving and time-saving arguments that Georgia

advanced. Their analysis reflected that most of the major premises underlying the

functional approach in Williams were inaccurate. Justice White asserted that the

requirement that a jury be a fair cross-section of the community would be violated

with juries of less than six members. And three justices (Chief Justice Burger and

Justices Powell and Rehnquist) agreed that a conviction for serious offenses by

juries of five members “involves grave questions of fairness” and that “the line

between five- and six-member juries is difficult to justify, but a line has to be drawn

somewhere if the substance of jury trial is to be preserved.” Id. at 245-46. Finally,

three justices (Brennan, Stewart, and Marshall) concurred only in the holding that

“the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments require juries in criminal trials to contain

more than five persons.” Id. at 246. The Ballew Court raised five key inadequacies

of a smaller jury:

First, recent empirical data suggest that progressively

smaller juries are less likely to foster effective group

deliberation. At some point, this decline leads to

inaccurate fact-finding and incorrect application of the

11

common sense of the community to the facts. Generally, a

positive correlation exists between group size and the

quality of both group performance and group productivity.

…

Second, the data now raise doubts about the accuracy of

the results achieved by smaller and smaller panels.

Statistical studies suggest that the risk of convicting an

innocent person… rises as the size of the jury diminishes.

…

Third, the data suggest that the verdicts of jury

deliberation in criminal cases will vary as juries become

smaller, and that the variance amounts to an imbalance to

the detriment of one side, the defense.

…

Fourth, what has just been said about the presence of

minority viewpoint as juries decrease in size foretells

problems not only for jury decision making, but also for

the representation of minority groups in the community.

The Court repeatedly has held that meaningful community

participation cannot be attained with the exclusion of

minorities or other identifiable groups from jury service.

… The exclusion of elements of the community from

participation contravenes the very idea of a jury…

composed of the peers or equals of the person whose

rights it is selected or summoned to determine.

…

Fifth, several authors have identified in jury research

methodological problems tending to mask differences in

the operation of smaller and larger juries such that

standard variances in smaller juries were greater.

Ballew at 232-39.

In Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U.S. 130 (1979), the Court again noted the lessthan-satisfactory nature of its functional approach, this time considering whether a

12

conviction for a non-petty state offense by a non-unanimous six-person jury was

constitutional. The Court stated:

As in Ballew, we do not pretend the ability to discern a

priori a bright line below which the number of jurors

participating in the trial or in the verdict would not

permit the jury to function in the manner required by our

prior cases. But having already departed from the strictly

historical requirements of jury trial, it is inevitable that

lines must be drawn somewhere if the substance of the

jury trial right is to be preserved.

Id. at 137.

In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), the Court rejected a

functional approach to the right to a jury trial in favor of the “practice” of trial by

jury as it existed “at common law”:

As we have, unanimously, explained . . . the historical

foundation for our recognition of these principles extends

down centuries into the common law. “[T]o guard against

a spirit of oppression and tyranny on the part of rulers,”

and “as the great bulwark of [our] civil and political

liberties,” 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of

the United States 540-541 (4th ed. 1873), trial by jury has

been understood to require that “the truth of every

accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment,

information, or appeal, should afterwards be confirmed by

the unanimous suffrage of twelve of [the

defendant’s]equals and neighbours . . . ” 4 W. Blackstone,

Commentaries on the Laws of England 343 (1769). See

also Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 151-154 (1968).

Apprendi at 477.

13

In Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), in which the Court applied

Apprendi and clarified the definition of the “statutory maximum” for any offense,

the Court repeated its reference to the “suffrage of twelve” and then re-emphasized

the critical nature of trial by jury:

Our commitment to Apprendi in this context reflects not

just respect for longstanding precedent, but the need to

give intelligible content to the right of jury trial. That right

is no mere procedural formality, but a fundamental

reservation of power in our constitutional structure. Just

as suffrage ensures the people’s ultimate control in the

legislative and executive branches, jury trial is meant to

ensure their control in the judiciary. Apprendi carries out

this design by ensuring that the judge’s authority to

sentence derives wholly from the jury’s verdict. Without

that restriction, the jury would not exercise the control

that the Framers intended.

Id. at 305-06.

The Court in Blakely focused on “the Framers’ paradigm for criminal

justice.” Id. at 313. This shift in constitutional perspective calls into question the

Court’s holding in Williams, which was based on the functional approach to the

right to a jury trial.

Florida courts have also questioned the Williams holding.

The Florida

Supreme Court noted that the empirical studies Ballew relied upon supported the

use of a twelve-person jury:

14

Interestingly, this analysis and the social studies on jury

size and small group dynamics cited by the Court also

provide support for the traditional twelve-person jury, a

requirement the Court had refused to mandate in Williams

v. Florida.

Blair v. State, 698 So. 2d 1210, 1216 (Fla. 1997). Building upon the Court’s

Ballew holding, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal cited to additional

empirical studies and other scholarly sources demonstrating the superiority of the

twelve-person jury in Gonzalez v. State, 982 So. 2d 77, 82-84 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008):

Mr. Gonzalez is not alone in arguing that advances in the

understanding of small group decision-making and trends

in the law of other states support another examination of

the Williams rationale. In 1995, the Committee on the

Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial

Conference of the United States proposed that the Federal

Rules of Civil Procedure be amended to require twelveperson juries in civil cases. See Proposed Amendments to

the Federal Rules of Appellate, Bankruptcy, Civil,

Criminal Procedure and Evidence, 163 F.R.D. 91

(transmitted by the Committee on the Rules of Practice

and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United

States for Notice and Comment, September 1995). The

text of the proposed committee note to follow the

proposed amended rule explained:

Much has been learned since 1973 about the

advantages of twelve-member juries.

Twelve-member juries substantially increase

the representative quality of most juries,

greatly improving the probability that most

juries will include members of minority

groups. The sociological and psychological

dynamics of jury deliberation also are

15

strongly influenced by jury size. Members of

a twelve-person jury are less easily

dominated by an aggressive juror, better able

to recall the evidence, more likely to rise

above the biases and prejudices of individual

members, and enriched by a broader base of

community experience. The wisdom

enshrined in the twelve-member tradition is

increasingly demonstrated by contemporary

social science. Id. at 147.

On February 14, 2005, the American Bar Association

House of Delegates approved Principles for Juries and

Jury Trials, a document prepared by the American Jury

Project after an October 2004 symposium. Principle 3 is

entitled “Juries Should Have Twelve Members” and calls

for twelve-person juries in any criminal case that might

result in a penalty of confinement of over six months.

Moreover, as mentioned at the beginning of this opinion,

Florida is one of only two states that now consistently

allow serious felony cases to be decided by juries with as

few as six members. See David B. Rottman & Shauna M.

Strickland, State Court Organization 2004, United States

Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Table

42

at

233,

available

at

http://www.ojp.

usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/sco04.htm (last visited Mar. 18,

2008).

The extensive development in the study of small group

decision-making since 1970 is well beyond the scope of

this opinion. There clearly is more scientific evidence

today than in 1970 that a twelve-person jury may be

superior to a six-person jury to accomplish the functions,

purposes, and goals identified by the Williams court.

Ensuing scholarship has criticized the empirical

authorities

upon

which

the Williams court

relied, see Robert H. Miller, Comment, Six of One Is Not

a Dozen of the Other: A Re-Examination of Williams v.

16

Florida and the Size of State Criminal Juries, 146 U. Pa.

L. Rev. 621, 652 (Jan. 1998), and collected more

empirical studies that contradict the conclusions of the

Court, see, e.g., Michael Saks & Mollie Weighner

Marti, A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Jury Size, 21 L. &

Hum. Behav. 451 (1997). The scholarship and evidence in

this regard, however, are not undisputed, and the various

scientific theories are not necessarily cohesive.

In Mr. Miller's article, Six of One is Not a Dozen of the

Other: A Re-examination of Williams v. Florida and the

Size of State Criminal Juries, the author concludes:

As the Ballew Court admitted, we now know

that six- and twelve-person juries are not

functionally

equivalent,

as

the Williams Court assumed. We know that

recall of facts, testimony, and in-court

observations are compromised significantly

when a six-person jury is used in place of a

twelve-person jury. We know that the rate of

hung juries declines and the rate of

conviction rises when smaller juries are used.

We know that minority representation,

community representativeness, and quality of

deliberation all decrease when six-person

juries are used. Finally, we know that sixperson juries are less reliable than twelveperson juries, because they are less consistent

in rulings on similar cases and because they

decide all cases at greater variance from

larger community preferences.

146 U. Pa. L. Rev. at 682-83 (footnotes omitted).

Gonzalez at 82-84 (footnotes omitted).

17

The Court’s holding in Ramos v. Louisiana, 140 S.Ct. 1390 (2020), continues

the Court’s trend of discarding the functional approach to jury trials and again casts

doubt on the continued viability of Williams.

Ramos held that the Sixth

Amendment right to a jury trial requires that state court verdicts in criminal cases be

unanimous, overruling contrary precedents from the early 1970s (Apodaca and

Johnson). Justice Gorsuch wrote in Ramos:

There can be no question either that the Sixth

Amendment's unanimity requirement applies to state and

federal criminal trials equally. This Court has long

explained that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial

is “fundamental to the American scheme of justice” and

incorporated against the States under the Fourteenth

Amendment. This Court has long explained, too, that

incorporated provisions of the Bill of Rights bear the

same content when asserted against States as they do

when asserted against the federal government. So if the

Sixth Amendment's right to a jury trial requires a

unanimous verdict to support a conviction in federal

court, it requires no less in state court.

Ramos at 1397.

“On similar reasoning, if the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial requires a

twelve-member jury to support a criminal conviction – as is done in every federal

court (and almost every state court)2 – it isn’t much of a stretch to conclude that ‘it

2 Lessard v. State, 232 So. 3d 13, 16–17 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) (Makar, J.,

concurring) (“The vast majority of states still choose twelve-person, unanimous

juries to convict in serious criminal cases. Forty-five states require twelve

18

requires no less in state court.’” Phillips v. State, 316 So. 3d 779, 787 (Fla. 1st DCA

2021) (J. Makar, concurring). Following Ramos, “[i]t seems a small step from the

demise of the reasoning in Apodaca and Johnson as announced in Ramos to

conclude that the reasoning in Williams, upon which both decisions relied, is also in

jeopardy.” Phillips at 788 (J. Makar, concurring). “For that reason… the issue of

jury size under the Sixth Amendment may be ripe for re-evaluation.” Id.

Justice Gorsuch, arguing the Constitution requires 12-member juries, wrote,

“Williams was wrong the day it was decided, it remains wrong today, and it impairs

both the integrity of the American criminal justice system and the liberties of those

who come before our Nation’s courts.” Khorrami v. Arizona, 143 S.Ct. 22, 23

(2022) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Justice Gorsuch has

recently reiterated his position that the Constitution requires a jury of twelve to try

criminal cases:

For almost all of this Nation’s history and centuries before

that, the right to trial by jury for serious criminal offenses

meant the right to a trial before 12 members of the

community. [citation omitted]. Acutely concerned with

unanimous jurors to convict for any felony (federal felony trials require twelve

jurors); a few states permit six to eight for specified felonies.” (footnotes omitted).

The “only other state [besides Florida] with six-person juries in felony cases is

Connecticut. All other state and federal felony prosecutions require twelve-person

juries.” Alisa Smith & Michael J. Saks, The Case For Overturning Williams v.

Florida and the Six-Person Jury: History, Law, and Empirical Evidence, 60 Fla. L.

Rev. 441, 443 (2008).

19

individuals and their liberty, the framers of our

Constitution sought to preserve this right for future

generations. [citation omitted]. Yet today, a small number

of States refuse to honor its promise. Consider this case:

A Florida court sent Natoya Cunningham to prison for

eight years on the say of just six people. Florida does what

the Constitution forbids because of us. In Williams v.

Florida, this Court in 1970 issued a revolutionary

decision approving for the first time the use of 6-member

panels in criminal cases. 399 U.S. 78, 103. In doing so,

the Court turned its back on the original meaning of the

Constitution, centuries of historical practice, and a battery

of this Court’s precedents. [citation omitted]. Before

Williams, this Court had said it was not open to question

that a jury should consist of twelve. Patton v. United

States, 281 U.S. 276, 288 (1930). We had understood the

jury referred to in the original Constitution and in the

Sixth Amendment is a jury constituted, as it was at

common law, of twelve persons. Thompson v. Utah, 170

U.S. 343, 349 (1898). Really, given the history of the jury

trial right before Williams, it was nearly unthinkable to

suggest that the Sixth Amendment’s right to a trial by jury

is satisfied by any lesser number. Yet Williams made the

unthinkable a reality. In doing so, it substituted bad social

science for careful attention to the Constitution’s original

meaning. Pointing to academic studies, Williams tepidly

predicted that 6-member panels would probably deliberate

just as carefully as 12-member juries. [citation omitted].

But almost before the ink could dry on the Court’s

opinion, the social science studies on which it relied came

under scrutiny. [citation omitted]. Soon, the Court was

forced to acknowledge empirical data suggesting that, in

fact, smaller juries are less likely to foster effective group

deliberation and may not produce as reliable or accurate

decisions as larger ones. [citation omitted]. All in all,

Williams was an embarrassing mistake – wrong the day it

was decided.

20

Cunningham v. Florida, 602 U.S. ___ (2024) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting from denial of

certiorari).

This case presents the Court with the opportunity to clarify its jurisprudence

regarding the Sixth Amendment’s jury size requirement for the trial of felony

offenses. The functional approach to jury size, upon which the Court’s opinion in

Williams stands, has seemingly been eroded by the Court’s more recent opinions.

The Court should now return to the longstanding precedent in place before

Williams, which focused on the meaning of the word “jury” as understood by the

founders at the time of the adoption of the Constitution:

Assuming, then, that the provisions of the constitution

relating to trials for crimes and to criminal prosecutions

apply to the territories of the United States, the next

inquiry is whether the jury referred to in the original

constitution and in the sixth amendment is a jury

constituted, as it was at common law, of twelve persons,

neither more nor less. (Citation omitted.) This question

must be answered in the affirmative. When Magna

Charta declared that no freeman should be deprived of

life, etc., ‘but by the judgment of his peers or by the law

of the land,’ it referred to a trial by twelve jurors. Those

who emigrated to this country from England brought

with them this great privilege ‘as their birthright and

inheritance, as a part of that admirable common law

which had fenced around and interposed barriers on

every side against the approaches of arbitrary power.’

(Citation omitted.) In Bac. Abr. tit. ‘Juries,’ it is said:

‘The trial per pais, or by a jury of one's country, is justly

esteemed one of the principal excellencies of our

constitution; for what greater security can any person

21

have in his life, liberty, or estate than to be sure of the

being devested of nor injured in any of these without the

sense and verdict of twelve honest and impartial men of

his neighborhood? And hence we find the common law

herein confirmed by Magna Charta.’ So, in 1 Hale, P. C.

33: ‘The law of England hath afforded the best method of

trial that is possible of this and all other matters of fact,

namely, by a jury of twelve men all concurring in the

same judgment, by the testimony of witnesses viva voce

in the presence of the judge and jury, and by the

inspection and direction of the judge.’ It must

consequently be taken that the word ‘jury’ and the words

‘trial by jury’ were placed in the constitution of the

United States with reference to the meaning affixed to

them in the law as it was in this country and in England

at the time of the adoption of that instrument; and that

when Thompson committed the offense of grand larceny

in the territory of Utah – which was under the complete

jurisdiction of the United States for all purposes of

government and legislation – the supreme law of the land

required that he should be tried by a jury composed of

not less than twelve persons.

Thompson v. State of Utah, 170 U.S. 343, 349-50 (1898).

22

CONCLUSION

Mantecon respectfully requests that the Court grant a writ of certiorari to

review the judgment of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal.

/s/ Barbara Busharis

_

BARBARA BUSHARIS

Assistant Public Defender

Office of the Public Defender,

Second Judicial Circuit of Florida

301 S. Monroe Street, Suite 401

Tallahassee, FL 32301

Member of the Bar of this Court

23

INDEX TO APPENDICES

Appendix A:

Decision of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, dated September 27, 2023.

Appendix B:

Order from Florida’s First District Court of Appeal denying rehearing, dated

November 29, 2023.

Appendix C:

Order from the Florida Supreme Court declining to exercise discretionary

jurisdiction, dated April 18, 2024.

24