Grover B. Reed v. State of Florida, 259 So. 3d 718

Grover B. Reed was sentenced to death in 1987; his conviction and death sentence became final in 1990 after extensive postconviction litigation.
In January 2017 Reed filed a successive postconviction motion invoking Hurst-based relief (Hurst v. Florida and Hurst v. State). The postconviction court (Judge Linda McCallum) summarily denied the motion.
Reed moved to disqualify Judge McCallum, alleging she had been an Assistant State Attorney from 1986–1994, worked on capital prosecutions, participated in a capital team that shared input on cases, and had been involved in at least one capital trial resulting in a death sentence still in effect.
Judge McCallum denied the disqualification motion as legally insufficient, calling the allegations speculative and not showing specific prejudice or an objectively reasonable fear of unfairness.
The Florida Supreme Court granted review, limited consideration to the disqualification issue, and held that Reed’s allegations were legally sufficient under Florida law to require recusal.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Reed's motion to disqualify Judge McCallum was timely	Reed filed within 10 days of discovering reassignment; complies with rule 2.330(e)	State argued the motion was untimely	Court held the motion was timely under the rule
Whether Reed's allegations were legally sufficient to require recusal	McCallum formerly prosecuted capital cases and was part of a capital team that influenced each other's cases; a reasonable person could fear lack of impartiality	Judge McCallum characterized allegations as speculative and cursory, lacking specific instances of bias	Court held allegations were legally sufficient to require recusal under Barnhill standard
Whether Williams v. Pennsylvania compels recusal here	Reed relied on Williams to argue disqualification when a judge formerly was a prosecutor involved in the case	State argued Williams does not control; recusal not required absent direct prior involvement	Court said Williams did not mandate recusal but nonetheless found Reed’s allegations sufficient under Florida’s impartiality standard
Whether the judge should preside over any further proceedings on Reed’s 3.851 motion	Reed argued recusal required to avoid appearance of bias in future Hurst-related proceedings	State implicitly argued judge may continue	Court held Judge McCallum must be recused and case reassigned to another judge for further evaluation

Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S.Ct. 1899 (2016) (Supreme Court due-process recusal holding when judge previously played a significant prosecutorial role in the defendant's case)
Barnhill v. State, 834 So.2d 836 (Fla. 2002) (standard for legal sufficiency of motions to disqualify: whether facts would place a reasonably prudent person in fear of not receiving a fair trial)
Hurst v. State, 202 So.3d 40 (Fla. 2016) (Florida decision implementing Hurst principles for capital sentencing)
Hurst v. Florida, 136 S.Ct. 616 (2016) (U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating Florida’s capital sentencing scheme under the Sixth Amendment)
Reed v. State, 560 So.2d 203 (Fla. 1990) (direct appeal addressing Reed’s conviction and sentence)
Livingston v. State, 441 So.2d 1083 (Fla. 1983) (disqualification focuses on matters that would reasonably question a judge's impartiality)
Cave v. State, 660 So.2d 705 (Fla. 1995) (court determines only legal sufficiency of disqualification motion, not truth of allegations)
MacKenzie v. Super Kids Bargain Store, Inc., 565 So.2d 1332 (Fla. 1990) (reasonably prudent person standard for fear of unfair trial)
Huff v. State, 622 So.2d 982 (Fla. 1993) (pretrial procedures delineating when evidentiary/case management hearings are required)