United States Supreme Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (2000), applies to Florida's

override scheme, whether it represents a change in the law under Witt v. State, 387 So. 2d 922 (Fla.

1980), whether this change in law requires retroactive application, and whether Petitioner is entitled to

relief under Apprendi; and (2) whether the Court's recent decision in Keen v. State, 775 So. 2d 263 (Fla.

2000), applying Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908 (Fla. 1975), establishes that Tedder was improperly

applied on Petitioner's direct appeal in violation of due process, equal protection, and the holding of the

recent decision in Fiore v. White, 121 S.Ct. 712 (2001).

1. Because of the substantial state and federal constitutional issues presented herein,

Petitioner requests that his execution be stayed in order to allow the Court and the parties to address these

2. As Mr. Mills' reply discusses, on the Apprendi issue alone, there is a great degree of

conflict among the various courts which have addressed the issue (not to mention the divisive nature of the

Apprendi decision itself amongst the members of the Supreme Court). A determination of whether a

decision from the Supreme Court is new and should be retroactively applied under Witt is not an

insubstantial matter to be decided by this Court. When the Court has previously addressed matters of

such importance but execution dates had been pending, the Court granted stays of execution. For

example, in Thompson v. Dugger, 515 So. 2d 173 (Fla. 1987), the Court granted a stay of execution to

determine whether Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393 (1987), met the Witt criteria for retroactive

application. In Riley v. Wainwright, the Court issued a stay of execution to address whether Lockett v.