Jim Saunders - News Service of Florida

If the execution is carried out, Curtis Windom would be the 11th Florida inmate put to death by lethal injection this year — a modern-era record.

Uthmeier said in March he would not defend the law, but Wednesday’s brief appeared to go further by arguing the Supreme Court should take up the case and find the law unconstitutional.

Plaintiffs claimed the district — which in recent years has been represented by Black Democrat Darryl Rouson — was racially gerrymandered.

The 5th District Court of Appeal, in a Sumter County case, rejected arguments that requiring the designation on licenses violated First Amendment rights.

Emmanuel Ayala, a semi-truck driver for the postal service who had a state concealed-weapons license, was arrested after he reported to work in 2022 while wearing a fanny pack that contained a gun, according to court documents.

According to the decision, the law is in violation of Section VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however the outcome of the issue might ultimately hinge on an appeals court ruling in a Georgia case.

The Orlando-based federal judge focused primarily on part of the legislation that seeks to prevent the availability of reading material that “describes sexual conduct.”

Albritton made the comments as lawmakers start to prepare for the 2026 legislative session and as Gov. Ron DeSantis has made a priority of asking voters next year to cut property taxes.

The federal government filed the Hendry County lawsuit in 1970, long after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling but as desegregation legal battles continued in the South and other parts of the country.

Details of the potential settlement have not been released, and some parties in the case have not signed on.