If a prosecutor strikes a Black juror for a reason that fits a non-Black juror who stays on the jury, the strike can be pretext. The Third District Court of Appeal said so on October 28, 2026, in Mesamours v. State, No. 3D24-1485, reversing a conviction for resisting an officer without violence and sending the case back for a new trial. The court replaced an earlier opinion from May 27, 2026, and the ruling is not final until rehearing is resolved. One judge dissented, and the chief judge concurred only in the result.
What happened in jury selection. The defense asked prospective jurors whether police officers are any more or less likely to tell the truth than anyone else. A Black woman on the panel answered that officers “can lie just the same.” The State struck her with its first peremptory challenge. Asked for a race-neutral reason, the prosecutor first said she had questioned the officers’ credibility. When the defense disputed that and the judge offered a readback, the prosecutor declined and gave a different reason: she had served on a criminal jury before. The defense pointed out that a seated juror who was not a Black woman had the same history. The judge accepted the second reason as genuine and allowed the strike.
Why it was reversed. The Third District looked only at the reason the trial court accepted. It applied equally to a seated non-Black juror, the State had five peremptory challenges left, the prior-service reason had nothing to do with the facts of the case, and the juror had been asked only one question, about police light colors, on an unrelated subject. The State never tried to distinguish her from the juror who stayed. Under the court’s own precedent in Overstreet, that “warrants a finding of pretext.”
Why the judges split. Chief Judge Scales agreed the prior-service reason failed. He wrote that the first reason, about the juror’s view of police credibility, likely would have satisfied Melbourne, but the trial court never decided whether it was genuine, and that call belongs to the trial court. The dissent would affirm on the ground that the State gave two race-neutral reasons and the trial court did not clearly err. The majority rejected affirming on a reason the State abandoned: that would make the genuineness inquiry “a mere formality.”
What it means for a defense lawyer. Raise the Melbourne objection when the strike is made. Ask the court to compare the stricken juror with the jurors who stay on the panel, and note what the prosecutor asked, and did not ask, in voir dire. In this case it helped that the State left unused strikes, never tried to distinguish the seated juror, and was held to the reason the trial court actually accepted.
Read the opinion (PDF): Download the opinion (PDF)
Also covered at Florida Lawyer News.
Source: Mesamours v. State, No. 3D24-1485 (Fla. 3d DCA Oct. 28, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.