Whether a state supreme court's procedural bar on a death row inmate's federal constitutional claim violates the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial when the bar depends on an incorrect interpretation of federal constitutional law

No question identified. : STANDARDS FOR A STAY OF EXECUTION The standards for granting a stay of execution are well established. Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 895 (1983). There “must be a reasonable probability that four members of the Court would consider the underlying issue sufficiently meritorious for the grant of certiorari or the notation of probable jurisdiction; there must be a significant possibility of reversal of the lower court’s decision; and there must be a 9 likelihood that irreparable harm will result if that decision is not stayed.” Jd. (quoting White v. Florida, 458 U.S. 1301, 1302 (1982) (Powell, J., in chambers). PETITIONER SHOULD BE GRANTED A STAY OF EXECUTION The questions raised in Mr. Tanzi’s petition are sufficiently meritorious for a grant of certiorari, present significant questions of constitutional law, and are not subject to any legitimate procedural impediments. As demonstrated in his underlying petition, Mr. Tanzi’s death sentence is unreliable and violative of this Court’s Sixth Amendment jurisprudence because a judge, not a jury, made the findings of fact necessary to impose a death sentence. See Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92 (2016). This Court’s decision in Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821 (2024), establishes that the state court’s definition of the Sixth Amendment and Due Process Clause error underlying Mr. Tanzi’s death sentence was fundamentally wrong. The Florida Supreme Court’s habitual diminution of fundamental Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment protections flouts clearly established federal law and runs afoul of “the historic role of the jury as an intermediary between the State and criminal defendants.” Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 114 (2013). Mr. Tanzi’s claims in his petition are not subject to any legitimate procedural impediments. This Court’s precedent is clear that if “the State has made application of the procedural bar depend on an antecedent ruling on federal law,” then it does not rest on “independent” grounds. Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 75 (1985). In denying Mr. Tanzi’s habeas petition on the merits, the Florida Supreme Court suggested that a procedural bar applied because “while presented as an Erlinger claim, what Tanzi really raises are repackaged versions of his Apprendi, Ring, and Hurst arguments.” Tanzi v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., SC2025-0372, 2025 WL 971568, *5 (Fla. Apr. 1, 2025). This procedural bar, thus, depended on the Florida Supreme Court’s antecedent conflation of two distinct federal constitutional commands: Hurst's command that a unanimous jury must find every fact necessary to impose death and Erlinger’s command that juries be preserved as “checks on governmental power.” Erlinger, 602 U.S. at 832. Although this Court’s decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), implements both commands, they are distinct. As outlined in the underlying Petition, the issue relates to the latter, the judgechecking command, which the Florida Supreme Court has not addressed. In contrast, Mr. Tanzi’s state postconviction claim in the wake of Hurst v. Florida related exclusively to the former: the jury factfinding command. Because the Florida Supreme Court’s procedural bar rested on the antecedent—and incorrect—ruling that these commands are synonymous, the purported procedural bar is not an “independent” state law ground that would preclude this Court’s review. See Ake, 470 U.S. at 75 (noting antecedent rulings may be explicit or implicit). Absent this Court’s intervention, the irreparable harm to Mr. Tanzi is clear. Wainwright v. Booker, 473 U.S. 935, 937 n.1 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring) (finding the requirement of irreparable harm as “necessarily present in capital cases”). Given the final nature of the death penalty there should be no point at which these considerations are foreclosed. “[E]xecution is the most irremediable and unfathomable of penalties; . .. death is different.” Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 411 (1986) (citing Wo