Supreme Court Term Opens With a Florida Case on Six-Person Juries

The Supreme Court's new term opens October 5, and among the cases the justices agreed to hear is one that could reshape criminal trials across Florida. In Kian v. Florida, the court will decide whether a defendant charged with a serious felony is entitled under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to a jury of 12 rather than six.

Florida tries all noncapital criminal cases before six-member juries, a practice that makes the state the most exposed jurisdiction in the country to whatever the court decides. Reporting on the case has put the number of Florida criminal convictions currently pending on direct appeal at roughly 5,000, a figure that illustrates the potential scope of any ruling.

The petitioner, Hamed Kian, was convicted by a unanimous six-person Florida jury on five felony counts of practicing chiropractic medicine with a suspended license. The court granted review on June 15, 2026, and arguments are expected in the fall.

The precedent at issue

The case is a direct challenge to Williams v. Florida, decided in 1970, in which the Supreme Court held 7-1 that six-person juries in criminal cases do not violate the Sixth Amendment. That decision reasoned that the constitutional requirement of a jury did not incorporate the specific number of 12, which the court characterized as a historical accident rather than an essential feature.

Williams has been criticized by legal scholars almost since it was issued. The critique holds that the empirical assumptions underlying the decision, that six-person and twelve-person juries function equivalently, have not held up under subsequent research.

The research points in a consistent direction. Larger juries deliberate longer, are more likely to include members of minority groups, are more likely to recall evidence accurately as a group, and produce more consistent verdicts across similar cases. Smaller juries show more variance, which in criminal law means less predictable outcomes for similarly situated defendants.

Where the states stand

Florida is the state most affected because it uses six-member juries for all noncapital crimes, including serious felonies carrying lengthy prison terms. Five other states, Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Utah, conduct some criminal trials with six-member juries, generally for less serious offenses.

The federal system requires 12-person juries in criminal cases. So does the substantial majority of state systems. Florida's practice is therefore an outlier among American jurisdictions rather than a common approach.

The historical reason for Florida's rule traces to efficiency. Smaller juries are faster to select, cheaper to compensate, and easier to seat, and a state with a large criminal docket has real institutional reasons to prefer them. Whether administrative efficiency justifies a constitutional difference is precisely what the court will consider.

What a ruling could mean

If the court holds that felony defendants are entitled to 12 jurors, the consequences for Florida would be immediate and substantial. Every criminal trial in the state would require a larger jury, which affects courthouse scheduling, juror summonses, courtroom capacity, and the length of jury selection.

The harder question is retroactivity, which the court would address separately if it ruled for the petitioner. New constitutional rules of criminal procedure are generally not applied retroactively to cases where direct appeals have concluded, but they do apply to cases still on direct review.

That is where the 5,000 figure becomes significant. Convictions still working through direct appeal would potentially be affected, which could mean retrials in a substantial number of cases, with all the difficulty that entails for witnesses, victims, and prosecutors working from years-old evidence.

If the court affirms Williams and upholds the six-person practice, nothing changes in Florida operationally, and the question is likely settled for a generation.

How Florida's system works now

Under current Florida practice, a criminal jury in a noncapital case consists of six members plus alternates, and the verdict must be unanimous. The unanimity requirement is itself relatively recent as a federal constitutional matter, having been established for state courts in 2020.

Capital cases are different. Florida seats 12 jurors in death penalty cases, an acknowledgment that the stakes warrant a larger body even under current law. That distinction is part of the petitioner's argument, since it concedes that jury size matters when consequences are severe.

Jury selection in Florida follows standard procedures, with challenges for cause and a limited number of peremptory strikes. With a smaller panel, each individual juror represents a larger share of the deliberating body, which magnifies the effect of every selection decision.

Why size affects outcomes

The practical argument for larger juries rests on deliberation dynamics. In a group of 12, a single juror holding a minority view is more likely to find at least one ally, which sustains discussion. In a group of six, a lone dissenter faces five, and social pressure toward conformity is correspondingly stronger.

Representation is the other consideration. A randomly selected panel of 12 is statistically more likely to include members of minority communities than a panel of six drawn from the same pool. In jurisdictions with diverse populations, that difference affects whether juries look like the communities they serve.

There is also a memory effect. Groups collectively recall trial evidence better than individuals, and larger groups recall more than smaller ones. In a complex trial, that difference can determine whether important testimony factors into deliberation at all.

The Florida stake

No state has more riding on this case. Florida's criminal courts process an enormous volume, and a structural change to jury composition would touch every circuit in the state.

Court administrators would face resource questions immediately. Doubling jury size means summoning more prospective jurors, compensating more of them, and finding courtroom space that accommodates larger panels. Rural circuits with limited facilities would face the sharpest constraints.

For defendants, the case is about whether the protection they receive at trial matches what defendants receive in federal court and in most other states. For prosecutors, it is about the stability of convictions already obtained and the workload of any retrials that follow.

How Williams was decided

The 1970 decision the court will reconsider came at a moment when the justices were actively working through which features of the federal criminal trial applied to state prosecutions through the Fourteenth Amendment.

The court had recently held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial applied to the states. Williams asked what that right actually required, and the majority concluded that the number 12 was a historical inheritance from English practice rather than a constitutionally essential feature.

The opinion reasoned that a jury's function is to interpose the common sense judgment of laypeople between the accused and the state, and that a group of six could perform that function as well as a group of twelve. It cited then-available research suggesting no meaningful difference in outcomes.

That empirical foundation is the part of the decision that has aged most poorly. Subsequent research, much of it conducted specifically in response to Williams, has consistently found differences in deliberation quality, representativeness, and verdict consistency between six-member and twelve-member juries.

The unanimity precedent

There is a recent template for how a challenge like this can succeed, and it involves a different feature of jury trials in a different pair of outlier states.

For decades, Louisiana and Oregon permitted non-unanimous jury verdicts in criminal cases, and the Supreme Court had upheld the practice. In 2020, the court reversed course and held that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimity in state criminal trials, overturning its prior precedent.

The reasoning in that decision included attention to the historical origins of the non-unanimity rules, which in both states traced to explicitly discriminatory purposes. It also reflected a willingness to revisit a precedent the court concluded had been wrongly decided.

The aftermath is instructive for what could follow here. The court subsequently held that the unanimity rule did not apply retroactively to convictions that had become final, which limited the disruption. Cases still on direct appeal were affected; cases that had exhausted appeals were not.

If the court rules for the petitioner in Kian, a similar retroactivity analysis would likely follow, and it would determine whether the practical consequence in Florida is thousands of retrials or a much smaller number.

Serving on a Florida jury

The case turns on a question most Floridians encounter only through a summons in the mail, and the mechanics of jury service in the state are worth understanding while the issue is before the court.

Jury pools in Florida are drawn from lists of licensed drivers and identification cardholders in each county, which means the pool broadly reflects the adult population though not perfectly. Prospective jurors are summoned to a courthouse and screened through a selection process conducted by the judge and the attorneys.

Selection involves questioning designed to identify jurors who cannot be impartial, followed by challenges. Challenges for cause are unlimited and require a stated reason. Peremptory challenges allow each side to strike a limited number of jurors without stating a reason, subject to constitutional limits on striking based on race or sex.

With a six-member panel, the peremptory challenges available to each side represent a larger proportion of the eventual jury than they would with twelve. That mathematics is part of the argument about representativeness, since a small number of strikes can substantially reshape a small panel.

Florida compensates jurors at rates that have long been criticized as inadequate, which affects who can afford to serve. Employers are prohibited from firing employees for jury service, but not all are required to pay them during it.

What's next

The term opens October 5, with arguments in Kian expected during the fall sitting. Oral argument audio is released the same day, and the transcript follows shortly after.

Decisions in argued cases typically issue between the argument date and the end of the term in late June, with the most consequential rulings often coming last. A decision overturning a 1970 precedent would fall into that category.

Until the court rules, Florida's practice remains in place. Six-person juries will continue trying felony cases across the state, and the roughly 5,000 convictions on direct appeal will continue moving through the system on the assumption that the current rule holds.