Attorneys for a man scheduled to be executed in July for a 1993 double homicide claim in a new appeal that two witnesses lied on the witness stand – and that they were induced to do so by a Jacksonville detective with ties to a different controversial case.
The legal team representing Michael Bell submitted handwritten affidavits from both witnesses, each saying he was coached to give false testimony by Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Detective William Bolena.
During a Friday court session, the judge overseeing the appeal ordered a Monday evidentiary hearing.
The allegations of perjury, allegedly encouraged by JSO and Jacksonville prosecutors, echo those of another capital prosecution recently highlighted by The Tributary. That case, involving the murder of a teenage drug dealer, also involves claims that witnesses were coached by law enforcement to lie.
In addition to the same lead detective, State of Florida vs. Kenneth Hartley had the same prosecutor and trial judge as Bell.
Bell’s appellate lawyers submitted a copy of The Tributary’s investigation as part of their pleading for relief.
Bell, 54, was convicted in 1995 of killing a couple as revenge for the murder of his brother. It was a case of mistaken identity: The victims, Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith, were not responsible for his brother’s death.
Bell’s appellate attorney, Bob Norgard, filed a motion Wednesday that accused prosecutor George Bateh and Detective Bolena of offering favors to the witnesses in exchange for false testimony.
The attorney submitted an affidavit signed by Henry Edwards, a witness in the trial, who now states he did not actually see Bell don a ski mask and commit the murders, contrary to his trial testimony, but rather only heard gunshots from inside a liquor store.
Edwards said Bolena fed him details of the crime to help him concoct a much more vivid tale and that Bateh coached him on how to stand up under cross-examination.
Edwards, who was in jail at the time, said his reward was that Bolena would pick him up, provide him with street clothes and drop him off at home for family visits.
A second witness, Charles Jones, wrote in an affidavit that Bolena approached him in jail in 1994 and “coerced him to testify against Bell by offering to help him with his [Jones’s] charges, Detective Bolena and prosecutor George Bateh told him what to say at trial.” Jones is currently in prison.
Bell was convicted in 1995, and sentenced to death by Judge R. Hudson Olliff, who, like Bolena, is now deceased. Bell is scheduled to die on July 15.
Bateh – a respected, longtime Duval prosecutor who has since retired – declined to comment. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Hartley and two other men were separately tried and convicted in the murder of 17-year-old Gino Mayhew. Like Bell, Hartley remains on Death Row.
In its investigation of the case, The Tributary reported that jurors were not informed that the prime witness against Hartley, a police informant named Sidney Jones, had previously been convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison for his testimony in a different murder trial. That conviction was later overturned, but on a technicality.
The Tributary’s investigation, “Cold-Blooded,” examined other questionable aspects of the trial, including that jurors were not told that Jones had been “blackballed” – banned as an untrustworthy informant — by JSO.
Jones’s testimony was bolstered by three jailhouse informants, who each claimed that Hartley had confessed behind bars. Two of the three men later recanted their claims, according to Hartley’s appellate attorneys. Several of their cellmates signed affidavits alleging that a JSO detective (not Bolena) was feeding the informants details about the crime and that it was an open secret in the jail that the informants would lie in exchange for reduced sentences in their own cases.
Appellate lawyers for Hartley are seeking an evidentiary hearing. Judge London Kite is weighing the scope of any such hearing.
The lawyers representing Bell separately claim that the defendant had ineffective counsel and that the prosecution used racist language that tainted the jury, but the allegations of perjury are the most recent development.
In a motion, the attorneys said the fresh information “is favorable to the accused because it weakens the State’s eyewitness evidence, and because misconduct and a quid pro quo arrangement between an eyewitness and police would have cast doubt on the rest of the police investigation.”
Circuit Judge Jeb Branham, who handled Friday’s court session, will oversee Monday’s evidentiary hearing at 9 a.m.
Nichole Manna is The Tributary’s senior investigative reporter. You can reach her at nichole.manna@jaxtrib.org.
