Emergency application · Capital case
Jury rights in death sentences
Richard Knight v. Ricky D. Dixon, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections
What did the Court do?
The Court denied the request on May 21, 2026 and refused to halt the execution.
Emergency rulings are temporary and do not decide the underlying case.
What's being asked
Richard Knight, a Florida death-row prisoner, asked the Supreme Court to pause his scheduled execution. He asked it to review a Florida Supreme Court decision denying his state-court challenge. Knight says Florida's high court wrongly changed how it applied an earlier Supreme Court ruling about jury fact-finding. He says the Florida Supreme Court had earlier found an error involving his Sixth Amendment jury right in the penalty phase.
What the Court did
The Court refused to pause Knight's execution and denied his stay request (a request for a temporary pause). It also denied his petition for Supreme Court review. The order gives no reasons, does not decide Knight's constitutional claims, and does not disclose how the justices voted.
What it means
The emergency ruling concerns only temporary relief, not who wins Knight's underlying constitutional challenge. The Florida Supreme Court's decision remains in place; no related case is listed, and no argument was set.
Sources
Facts on this page come from the Supreme Court docket, orders, and opinions for No. 25A1273. The answers restate that record in plain words; explainer copy is written from the record and the filings only.