Floyd was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He brought a state post-conviction proceeding, alleging among other things that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel. The lower court rejected Floyd's claims without holding any hearing. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that an evidentiary hearing was required on Floyd's claims. "Floyd set forth a sufficient factual basis for relief which was not conclusively refuted by the record." 2002 WL 58547 At *3.

One of Floyd's claims was that his trial counsel could have learned through an adequate investigation of possible mitigating circumstances that Floyd had FAS. This was one of seven types of mitigating factors the trial attorney allegedly failed to unearth.

The decision does not contain a specific explanation of why the Florida Supreme Court concluded a hearing was needed. Footnote 15, the footnote to the sentence quoted above, contains no explanation of its own, but merely refers to footnotes 12, 13 and 14. Those footnotes contain the following statements:

The dissenting opinion quoted a portion of the lower court decisions which noted that the trial attorney had called seven defense mitigation witnesses, and which stated that "the evidence presented during the penalty phase is inconsistent with, and directly refutes, Defendant's current claims of mental illness or retardation." 2002 WL 58547 at *9.