Lucious Boyd, Appellant v. State of Florida, Appellee; Lucious Boyd, Petitioner, v. Julie L. Jones

Summary

The court affirmed the denial of Boyd’s postconviction motion and denied his habeas petition. It held that the service of a convicted felon or a juror with a prior misdemeanor encounter does not automatically require a new trial absent legally sufficient evidence of actual bias, and it rejected Boyd’s ineffective-assistance claims because counsel’s challenged decisions were reasonable or caused no prejudice. Justice Lewis, concurring in the result only, would have treated the improperly constituted jury as a structural defect requiring a new trial, while Justice Quince, dissenting, would have adopted a per se new-trial rule.