Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Maxo Casseus, Petitioner v. Florida

No.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

MAXO CASSEUS, PETITIONER,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT.

_____________

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO

THE FOURTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA

_____________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

DANIEL EISINGER

Public Defender

Paul Edward Petillo

Assistant Public Defender

Counsel of Record

Benjamin Nathaniel Paley

Assistant Public Defender

Office of the Public Defender

Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida

421 Third Street

West Palm Beach, Florida 33401

(561) 355–7600

Ppetillo@pd15.org

Bpaley@pd15.org

Appeals@pd15.org

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether Petitioner was derived of his right, under the Sixth and

Fourteenth Amendments, to a trial by a 12-person jury when the

defendant is charged with a serious felony?

There are two other petitions raising the same question

presented. See Parada v. United States, No. 25-166; Minor v. Florida,

No. 24-7489. This case should at least be held pending resolution of

those petitions.

i

RELATED PROCEEDINGS

Nineteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida:

State v. Casseus, 2022CF002867 A (May 14, 2024)

Fourth District Court of Appeal of Florida:

Casseus v. State, 4D2024–1600 (Aug. 7, 2025)

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

QUESTION PRESENTED ................................................................. i

RELATED PROCEEDINGS .............................................................. ii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...............................................................iv

OPINION BELOW ........................................................................... 1

JURISDICTION ............................................................................... 2

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS ........................ 3

STATEMENT OF THE CASE ........................................................... 4

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION ..................................... 5

THIS COURT SHOULD GRANT CERTIORARI BECAUSE WILLIAMS

IS “FUNDAMENTALLY MISGUIDED.” ............................................. 5

a. Williams was the first time this Court held that a criminal

defendant charged with a felony is not constitutionally entitled to a

twelve-person jury. ......................................................................... 5

b. Williams was the first time this Court interpreted a provision of the

Constitution using the functionalist approach, an approach that this

Court later threw out in Ramos. ..................................................... 8

c. Williams is bad precedent. ........................................................ 20

CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 22

INDEX TO APPENDICES

A. District Court’s Decision .......................................................... 1a

B. Order Denying Rehearing ......................................................... 2a

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U. S. 223 (1978) ........................................ 10

Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U. S. 483 (1954) .............................. 20

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570 (2008) ......................... 6

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U. S. 215 (2022) ....... 20

Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968)...................................... 8

Florida Fertilizer & Mfg. Co. v. Boswell, 34 So. 241 (Fla. 1903) ...... 14

Gibson v. State, 16 Fla. 291 (1877) ............................................... 14

Jackson v. State, 926 So. 2d 1262 (Fla. 2006) ................................ 2

Khorrami v. Arizona, 143 S. Ct. 22 (2022) ....................................... 6

Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369 (2024)................. 21

Mallet v. State, 280 So. 3d 1091 (Fla. 2019) .................................... 2

Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581 (1900) ............................................. 7

Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778 (2009).................................... 21

Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276 (1930) .................................. 8

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223 (2009) .................................... 21

Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 415 (1991) ..................................... 19

Thompson v. Utah, 170 U. S. 343 (1898) ......................................... 7

United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716 (1931) ............................... 6

Statutes

28 U. S. C. § 1257 ........................................................................... 2

Ch. 3010, § 6, Laws of Fla. (1877) ................................................ 14

Fla. Stat. § 913.10 .......................................................................... 3

iv

Other Authorities

4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1769) ...... 6

Diamond et al., Achieving Diversity on the Jury: Jury Size and the

Peremptory Challenge, 6 J. of Empirical Legal Stud. 425 (Sept.

2009) ......................................................................................... 12

Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement

of Black People in America From the Civil War to World War II (2008

.................................................................................................. 18

Douglas L. Colbert, Challenging the Challenge: Thirteenth Amendment

as a Prohibition against the Racial Use of Peremptory Challenges, 76

Corn. L. Rev. 1 (1990) ................................................................ 16

Higginbotham et al., Better by the Dozen: Bringing Back the TwelvePerson Civil Jury, 104 Judicature 47 (Summer 2020) .......... 12, 13

Jerrell H. Shofner, Reconstruction and Renewal, 1865–1877, in The

History of Florida 273 (Michael Gannon, ed., first paperback edition

2018) ................................................................................... 14, 15

John Gastil & Phillip J. Weiser, Jury Service as an Invitation to

Citizenship: Assessing the Civic Values of Institutionalized

Deliberation, 34 Pol'y Stud. J. 605 (2006) .................................. 19

Matthew J. Mancini, One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the

American South, 1866-1928 (1996) ............................................ 18

Richard L. Hume, Membership of the Florida Constitutional

Convention of 1868: A Case Study of Republican Factionalism in the

Reconstruction South, 51 Fla. Hist. Q. 1 (1972) .......................... 15

Robert H. Miller, Comment, Six of One Is Not a Dozen of the Other: A

Reexamination of Williams v. Florida and the Size of State Criminal

Juries, 146 U. Pa. L. Rev. 621 (1998) ........................................... 6

Shamena Anwar, et al., The Impact of Jury Race In Criminal Trials,

127 Q.J. Of Econ. 1017 (2012) .................................................. 11

Smith & Saks, The Case for Overturning Williams v. Florida and the

Six-Person Jury, 60 Fla. L. Rev. 441 (2008) ................................ 12

v

United

States

Courts,

Juror

Experiences,

available

at

https://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/jury-service/learnabout-jury-service/juror-experiences ......................................... 19

Constitutional Provisions

U. S. Const. Amdt. 6. ............................................................. passim

vi

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_____________

N O.

MAXO CASSEUS, PETITIONER,

V.

STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT.

_____________

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO

THE FOURTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA

_____________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

_____________

Maxo Casseus respectfully petitions for a writ of certiorari to

review the judgment in this case of the Fourth District Court of

Appeal of Florida.

OPINION BELOW

The decision of Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal has not

yet been published in the Southern Reporter, but it is reported as

Casseus v. State, No. 4D2024-1600, 2025 WL 2249652 (Fla. 4th DCA

Aug. 7, 2025). A copy is provided in the appendix. See 1a.

1

JURISDICTION

This Court has jurisdiction to review final judgments or decrees

“rendered by the highest court of a state in which a decision could be

had.” 28 U. S. C. § 1257(a).

Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed Petitioner’s

convictions and sentences without written opinion on August 7,

2025. 1a. The court then denied Petitioner’s motion for rehearing and

to certify a question of great public importance on October 9, 2025.

2a.

Petitioner now seeks review at this Court. Although the Florida

Supreme Court is the highest court in Florida in which a decision

could be had, the Florida Supreme Court has held that it does not

have jurisdiction to review district court of appeal decisions entered

without a written opinion. See Jackson v. State, 926 So. 2d 1262,

1266 (Fla. 2006); Mallet v. State, 280 So. 3d 1091, 1092 (Fla. 2019)

(holding that the Florida Supreme Court is “a court of limited

jurisdiction”). Petitioner could thus not seek higher review at the

Florida Supreme Court, meaning the Fourth District was the highest

court in the State of Florida where Petitioner could seek a decision.

This Court has jurisdiction.

2

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS

The Sixth Amendment

The Sixth Amendment provides: “In all criminal prosecutions,

the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an

impartial jury.”

Section 913.10, Florida Statutes

Twelve persons shall constitute a jury to try all capital

cases, and six persons shall constitute a jury to try all

other criminal cases.

Fla. Stat. § 913.10.

3

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Respondent (the State of Florida) charged Petitioner with

Possession Of Fentanyl (Count 1), Possession Of Cocaine (Count 2),

Possession Of More Than 20 Grams Of Cannabis (Count 3),

Trafficking In Fentanyl—14 Grams Or More But Less Than 28 Grams

(Count 4), and Driving Without Valid Driver’s License (Count 5). At

trial, a six-person jury was sworn in.

At the close of all the testimony, Respondent announced it was

going to nolle pros Counts 1 and 3. The six-person jury convicted

Petitioner of Possession Of Cocaine (Count 2), Trafficking In Fentanyl

(Count 4), and Driving Without Valid License (Count 5). The trial

court entered a judgment of conviction and sentenced Appellant to

sixty months on Count 2, twenty years on Count 4, and sixty days

on Count 5. The trial court ordered that the sentences imposed on

Counts 2 and 5 were to run concurrent with the sentence imposed

on Count 4. The trial court then gave Petitioner 545 days’ credit for

Counts 2 and 4, and 60 days’ credit for Count 5.

Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed without a

written opinion. 1a. Subsequently, it denied Petitioner’s motion for

rehearing and written opinion. 2a.

4

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

THIS COURT SHOULD GRANT CERTIORARI BECAUSE

WILLIAMS IS “FUNDAMENTALLY MISGUIDED.”

For most of this nation’s history, and for centuries before that,

a criminal defendant charged with a felony was entitled to a twelveperson jury. That was the common understanding when the Sixth

Amendment was ratified. Nevertheless, this Court held in Williams v.

Florida, supra, that a criminal defendant charged with a felony is not

entitled to a twelve-person jury. In addition to ignoring decades of its

own precedent and the plain and ordinary meaning of the Sixth

Amendment, this Court relied on a functionalist model of constitutional interpretation—a mode of constitutional interpretation that

this Court has since abandoned.

a. Williams was the first time this Court held that a

criminal defendant charged with a felony is not

constitutionally entitled to a twelve-person jury.

In Williams, this Court held for the first time that a criminal

defendant charged with a felony is not constitutionally entitled to a

twelve-person jury. By doing so, this Court ignored the plain and ordinary meaning of the Sixth Amendment.

When the words and phrases in the Constitution were adopted,

they “were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from

5

technical meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731

(1931). “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were

understood to have when the people adopted them.” New York State

Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1, 34 (2022) (quoting District

of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 634–35 (2008))).

History shows that the common understanding in the 1790s,

when the Sixth Amendment was ratified, was that a criminal defendant charged with a felony was entitled to a twelve-person jury. In fact,

that had been the understanding for hundreds of years. Khorrami v.

Arizona, 143 S. Ct. 22, 27 (2022) (GORSUCH, J., dissenting from the

denial of certiorari); accord Gibson v. State, 16 Fla. 291, 300 (1877)

(holding that historically, the right to a jury trial meant “a jury, according to the common law, to be composed of twelve persons”); Robert H. Miller, Comment, Six of One Is Not a Dozen of the Other: A Reexamination of Williams v. Florida and the Size of State Criminal Juries,

146 U. Pa. L. Rev. 621, 633 (1998) (discussing twelve-member juries

in ancient Greek and Roman trials (myth and real)); 4 W. Blackstone,

Commentaries on the Laws of England 343 (1769) (stating that juries

consisting of twelve people was commonplace in the English common

law). Since the time of the Magna Carta, the word “jury” had been

6

understood to mean a body of twelve. Thompson v. Utah, 170 U. S.

343, 349–50 (1898).

For the most part, this Court’s precedent adhered to the Sixth

Amendment’s plain and ordinary meaning, holding in several cases

that the Sixth Amendment guaranteed a criminal defendant charged

with a felony a twelve-person jury. In Thompson, this Court noted

that since the time of Magna Carta, the word “jury” had been understood to mean a body of twelve. Id., at 349–50. Because that understanding had been accepted since 1215, the Court reasoned, “[i]t

must” have been “that the word ‘jury’” in the Sixth Amendment was

“placed in the constitution of the United States with reference to

[that] meaning affixed to [it].” Id., at 350.

After Thompson, this Court continued to cite the basic principle

that the Sixth Amendment requires a twelve-person jury in criminal

cases for another seventy years. In 1900, for example, this Court explained that “there [could] be no doubt” “[t]hat a jury composed, as

at common law, of twelve jurors was intended by the Sixth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.” Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581,

586 (1900). Thirty years later, this Court reiterated that it was “not

open to question” that “the phrase ‘trial by jury’” in the Constitution

7

incorporated juries’ “essential elements” as “they were recognized in

this country and England,” including the requirement that they “consist of twelve men, neither more nor less.” Patton v. United States,

281 U. S. 276, 288 (1930). And as recently as 1968, this Court remarked that “by the time our Constitution was written, jury trial in

criminal cases had been in existence for several centuries and carried

impressive credentials traced by many to Magna Carta,” such as the

necessary inclusion of twelve members. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391

U. S. 145, 151–52 (1968).

It was not until 1970, in Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970),

that this Court changed its course and permitted juries with less

than twelve people in felony trials. In Williams, a case concerning

Florida’s six-person-jury law, this Court held for the first time that a

trial by a jury of six does not violate the Sixth Amendment.

b. Williams was the first time this Court interpreted a

provision of the Constitution using the functionalist

approach, an approach that this Court later threw out in

Ramos.

In addition to turning centuries of precedent on its head, this

Court in Williams abandoned the plain and ordinary meaning of the

Sixth Amendment to reach its decision. Instead, this Court relied on

8

the functionalist approach. This Court reasoned that it could find “no

indication in ‘the intent of the Framers’ of an explicit decision to

equate the constitutional and common-law characteristics of the

jury.” Id., at 99. According to this Court, “[t]he relevant inquiry . . .

must be the function that the particular feature performs and its relation to the purposes of the jury trial.” Id., at 99–100. “Measured by

th[at] standard,” this Court held, “the [twelve-person jury] requirement [for felony trials] cannot be regarded as an indispensable component of the Sixth Amendment,” because “neither currently available evidence nor theory suggests that the [twelve-person] jury is necessarily more advantageous to the defendant than a jury composed

of fewer members.” Id., at 100–02 (footnotes omitted). Such a mode

of interpretation ignored the plain and ordinary meaning of the Sixth

Amendment.

Even if one were to accept the functionalist logic of Williams —

that the Sixth Amendment is subject to reinterpretation on the basis

of social science — it invites, nay demands, that it be periodically

revisted to determine whether the social science holds up. And here

we encounter a serious problem: it was based on research that was

out of date shortly after the opinion issued.

9

Williams “f[ou]nd little reason to think” that the goals of the jury

guarantee, which included providing “a fair possibility for obtaining

a representative[] cross-section of the community,” were “in any

meaningful sense less likely to be achieved when the jury numbers

six, than when it numbers 12.” Id., at 100. It theorized that “in

practice the difference between the 12-man and the six-man jury in

terms of the cross-section of the community represented seems likely

to be negligible.” Id., at 102.

Since Williams, that determination has proven incorrect. In

Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U. S. 223 (1978), this Court held that the core

“function” of the Sixth Amendment was disturbed by a five-person

jury. Id., at 245. Although Ballew did not overturn Williams, it

observed that empirical studies conducted in the intervening years

highlighted several problems with its assumptions. For example,

Ballew noted that more recent research showed that (1) “smaller

juries are less likely to foster effective group deliberation,” id., at 233,

(2) smaller juries may be less accurate and cause “increasing

inconsistency” in verdict results, id., at 234, (3) the chance for hung

juries decreases with smaller juries, disproportionally harming the

defendant, id., at 236; and (4) decreasing jury sizes “foretell[]

10

problems … for the representation of minority groups in the

community,” undermining a jury’s likelihood of being “truly

representative of the community,” id., at 236–37. Moreover, the

Ballew Court “admit[ted]” that it “d[id] not pretend to discern a clear

line between six members and five,” effectively acknowledging that

the studies it relied on also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the sixmember jury. Id., at 239; see also id., at 245–46 (Powell, J.) (agreeing

that five-member juries are unconstitutional, while acknowledging

that “the line between five- and six-member juries is difficult to

justify”).

Post-Ballew research has further undermined Williams. As

already noted, Williams itself identified the “function” of the Sixth

Amendment as leaving justice to the “commonsense judgment of a

group of laymen” and thus allowing “guilt or innocence” to be

determined

via

“community

participation

and

[with]

shared

responsibility.” 399 U. S., at 100–01. That function is thwarted by

reducing the number of jurors to six. Smaller juries are perforce less

representative of the community, and they are less consistent than

larger juries. See, e.g., Shamena Anwar, et al., The Impact of Jury

Race In Criminal Trials, 127 Q.J. Of Econ. 1017, 1049 (2012) (finding

11

that “increasing the number of jurors on the seated jury would

substantially reduce the variability of the trial outcomes, increase

black representation in the jury pool and on seated juries, and make

trial outcomes more equal for white and black defendants”); Diamond

et al., Achieving Diversity on the Jury: Jury Size and the Peremptory

Challenge, 6 J. of Empirical Legal Stud. 425, 427 (Sept. 2009)

(“reducing jury size inevitably has a drastic effect on the

representation

of

minority

group

members

on

the

jury”);

Higginbotham et al., Better by the Dozen: Bringing Back the TwelvePerson Civil Jury, 104 Judicature 47, 52 (Summer 2020) (“Larger

juries are also more inclusive and more representative of the

community. … In reality, cutting the size of the jury dramatically

increases the chance of excluding minorities.”).

Other important considerations also weigh in favor of the

twelve-member jury. Twelve-member juries deliberate longer, recall

evidence

better,

and

rely

less

on

irrelevant

factors

during

deliberation. See Smith & Saks, The Case for Overturning Williams v.

Florida and the Six-Person Jury, 60 Fla. L. Rev. 441, 465 (2008).

Minority views are also more likely to be thoroughly expressed

in a larger jury, as “having a large minority helps make the minority

12

subgroup more influential,” and, unsurprisingly, “the chance of

minority members having allies is greater on a twelve-person jury.”

Id., at 466. Finally, larger juries deliver more predictable results. In

the civil context, for example, “[s]ix-person juries are four times more

likely to return extremely high or low damage awards compared to

the average.” Higginbotham et al., supra, at 52.

Importantly, the history of Florida’s rule can be traced to the

Jim Crow-era. Justice Gorsuch has observed that “[d]uring the Jim

Crow[-]era, some States restricted the size of juries and abandoned

the demand for a unanimous verdict as part of a deliberate and

systematic effort to suppress minority voices in public affairs.”

Khorrami v. Arizona, 143 S. Ct. 22, 27 (2022) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting

from denial of certiorari) (citations omitted). He noted, however, that

Arizona’s law was likely motivated by costs not race. Ibid. But

Florida’s jury of six did arise in that Jim Crow era of a “deliberate and

systematic effort to suppress minority voices in public affairs.” Ibid.

The historical background is as follows:

In 1875, the Jury Clause of the 1868 constitution was amended

to provide that the number of jurors “for the trial of causes in any

court may be fixed by law.” See Florida Fertilizer & Mfg. Co. v. Boswell,

13

34 So. 241, 241 (Fla. 1903). The common law rule of a jury of twelve

was still kept in Florida while federal troops remained in the state.

There was no provision for a jury of less than twelve until the

Legislature enacted a provision specifying a jury of six in chapter

3010, section 6, Laws of Florida (1877). See Gibson v. State, 16 Fla.

291, 297–98 (1877); Florida Fertilizer, 34 So., at 241.

The Florida Legislature enacted chapter 3010 with the jury-ofsix provision on February 17, 1877. Gibson, 16 Fla., at 294. This was

less than a month after the last federal troops were withdrawn from

Florida in January 1877. See Jerrell H. Shofner, Reconstruction and

Renewal, 1865–1877, in The History of Florida 273 (Michael Gannon,

ed., first paperback edition 2018) (“there were [no federal troops] in

Florida after 23 January 1877”).

The jury-of-six thus first saw light at the birth of the Jim Crow

era as former Confederates regained power in southern states and

state prosecutors made a concerted effort to prevent blacks from

serving on jurors.

On its face the 1868 constitution extended the franchise to

black men. But the historical context shows that that it was part of

the overall resistance to Reconstruction efforts to protect the rights

14

of black citizens. The constitution was the product of a remarkable

series of events including a coup in which leaders of the white

southern (or native) faction took possession of the assembly hall in

the middle of the night, excluding Radical Republican delegates from

the proceedings. See Richard L. Hume, Membership of the Florida

Constitutional Convention of 1868: A Case Study of Republican

Factionalism in the Reconstruction South, 51 Fla. Hist. Q. 1, 5–6

(1972); Shofner, supra, at 266. A reconciliation was effected as the

“outside” whites “united with the majority of the body’s native whites

to frame a constitution designed to continue white dominance.”

Hume, supra, at 15.

The purpose of the resulting constitution was spelled out by

Harrison Reed, a leader of the prevailing faction and the first governor

elected under the 1868 constitution, who wrote to Senator Yulee that

the new constitution was constructed to bar blacks from legislative

office: “Under our Constitution the Judiciary & State officers will be

appointed & the apportionment will prevent a negro legislature.” Id.,

at 15–16.

Smaller juries and non-unanimous verdicts were part of a Jim

Crow-era effort “to suppress minority voices in public affairs.”

15

Khorrami, 143 S. Ct., at 27 (2022) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting from

denial of certiorari); see also Ramos, 590 U.S., at 126–27

(Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (non-unanimity was enacted “as one

pillar of a comprehensive and brutal program of racist Jim Crow

measures against African-Americans, especially in voting and jury

service”). The history of Florida’s six-person jury arises from the same

historical context.

And when the Florida Legislature reduced the size of juries from

twelve to six in 1877, it also re-established the “integrity, fair character, sound judgment and intelligence” test for jury service. Ch.

3010, Laws of Fla. (1877). This discretionary standard was “used to

eliminate almost every black citizen from the southern trial venire.”

Douglas L. Colbert, Challenging the Challenge: Thirteenth Amendment

as a Prohibition against the Racial Use of Peremptory Challenges, 76

Corn. L. Rev. 1, 89-90 (1990). So rare was it for an African American

to serve on a jury that it was worthy of a news article, and this was

so well into the twentieth century:

“It is strange that the presence of a negro on the jury should not

have attracted sufficient attention to have caused an inquiry into his

16

eligibility as a jury man.” That Federal Jury, Panama City Pilot, Nov.

27, 1924, at 1.

“At one point it looked as though the first negro juror in Monroe

County was to be selected.” Child Molesting Trial Jury Chosen, Key

West Citizen, Dec. 11, 1952, at 1, 3.

“A negro juror was picked today to try Felix Combs, a negro

roustabout, for raping a Clearwater woman. Selection of Henry Davis

of Tarpon Springs marked one of the few times a negro has been selected for jury duty.” Negro Juror, Sanford Herald, Oct. 4, 1948, at 1.

“The names of several Negroes were included in the 1950 jury

list. Last fall, the county’s first Negro juror served when Calvin Smith

was named on the venire which heard a cattle rustling case in Circuit

Court.” First Two Women are Picked for Possible Jury Duty in County,

Citrus Cnty. Chron., Feb. 16, 1950, at 1.

17

One Negro on the Jury, DeLand Daily News, March 3, 1915, at 3.

To top it off, the Legislature in that same session established

convict leasing. Ch. 3034, Laws of Fla. (1877) (state prisoners); ch.

2090, Laws of Fla. (1877) (county prisoners). “By 1900, the South’s

judicial system had been wholly reconfigured to make one of its

primary purposes the coercion of African Americans to comply with

the social customs and labor demands of whites.” Douglas A.

Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black

People in America From the Civil War to World War II 7–8 (2008));

Matthew J. Mancini, One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the

American South, 1866-1928 (1996) (noting the steady growth of

Southern prison populations after the establishment of convict

leasing: “Florida, with 125 prisoner in 1881, had 1,071 by 1904”).

18

This sad history casts into relief another negative consequence

of smaller juries: it denies a great number of citizens the “duty, honor,

and privilege of jury service.” Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 415

(1991). Many consider jury service an “amazing and powerful

opportunity and experience—one that will strengthen your sense of

humanity and your own responsibility.” United States Courts, Juror

Experiences,

https://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/jury-

service/learn-about-jury-service/juror-experiences (last visited Jan.

6, 2026). Jury service, like civic deliberation in general, “not only

resolves conflicts in a way that yields improved policy outcomes, it

also transforms the participants in the deliberation in important

ways—altering how they think of themselves and their fellow

citizens.” John Gastil & Phillip J. Weiser, Jury Service as an Invitation

to Citizenship: Assessing the Civic Values of Institutionalized

Deliberation, 34 Pol’y Stud. J. 605, 606 (2006). Jury service is a

“means of affording every citizen the chance to step into the state’s

shoes, to see the inner workings of the justice system, and to feel

first-hand the power of self-government.” Id. at 619. “In other words,

the jury is a sacred, institutionalized opportunity for citizens to

experience the transformative power of public deliberation.” Ibid.

19

In view of the foregoing, this Court should grant the petition,

recede from Williams, restore the ancient right to a jury of twelve and

reverse Petitioner’s conviction. In the alternative, the petition should

be held pending the disposition of Parada v. United States, No. 25166, and Minor v. Florida, No. 24-7489.

c. Williams is bad precedent.

Bad precedent cannot stand, even if it has been on the books

for decades. Because Williams was wrong when it was decided and it

is wrong now, it is bad precedent and must be overturned.

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S.

215 (2022), this Court noted that “stare decisis is not an inexorable

command” and “is at its weakest when [the Court] interpret[s] the

Constitution.” Id., at 264. The case reporters are filled with cases

where a party challenged a long-settled law and succeeded in overturning it. See, e.g., ibid.; Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U. S. 483

(1954).

“[W]hen it comes to the interpretation of the Constitution—the

‘great charter of our liberties,’ which was meant to endure through

the long lapse of the ages—we place a high value on having the matter

settled right.” Dobbs, supra, at 264 (cleaned up). And, “when one of

20

our constitutional decisions goes astray, the country is usually stuck

with the bad decision unless we correct our own mistake.” Ibid.

“Therefore, in appropriate circumstances [the Court] must be willing

to reconsider, and if necessary, overrule constitutional decisions.”

Ibid.

“Beyond workability, the relevant factors in deciding whether to

adhere to the principle of stare decisis include the antiquity of the

precedent, the reliance interests at stake, and of course whether the

decision was well reasoned.” Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778,

792–93 (2009). This Court has also examined whether “experience

has pointed up the precedent’s shortcomings.” Pearson v. Callahan,

555 U. S. 223, 233 (2009).

Williams has proved to be “fundamentally misguided.” See Loper

Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 407 (2024). Primarily, Williams does not comport with an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Up until Williams was decided, this Court had long recognized that a criminal defendant charged with a felony had a Sixth

Amendment right to a twelve-person jury. Williams, for the first time

in American jurisprudence, held otherwise. Even more egregious,

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was the fact that this Court based its decision on a functionalist approach.

Now that Ramos has called into question this Court’s earlier reliance on the functionalist approach, Williams should be revisited.

Upon revisiting Williams, this Court should overturn it and return to

an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.

CONCLUSION

The petition should be granted or held pending the disposition

of Parada v. United States, No. 25-166, and Minor v. Florida, No. 247489.

Respectfully submitted,

DANIEL EISINGER

Public Defender

Paul Edward Petillo

Assistant Public Defender

Counsel of Record

Benjamin Nathaniel Paley

Assistant Public Defender

Office of the Public Defender

Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida

421 Third Street

West Palm Beach, Florida 33401

(561) 355–7600

Ppetillo@pd15.org

Bpaley@pd15.org

Appeals@pd15.org

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