On June 16, Henry Edwards signed a detailed affidavit acknowledging that he gave false testimony in a 1995 capital murder case as a favor to a Jacksonville detective – false testimony that put a man on Death Row for the murder of a husband and wife.
On Monday, after prosecutors and a judge told Edwards that recanting his past testimony could lead to criminal charges, he took it all back.
It was a day of legal whiplash, witnessed by condemned murderer Michael Bell, wearing a prison jumpsuit, and by his relatives. Bell’s team hopes for a stay of his July 15 execution – and ultimately to win a new trial.
No ruling was issued, but one is expected by 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Edwards, a lifelong Jacksonville resident, said he’d been confused the previous week when he signed an affidavit describing his prior testimony, critical to the case against Bell, as false. He said he thought the visitors to his home asking him questions about the man he helped put on Death Row were authors putting together a fictionalized movie script based on the 1993 murder, despite the visitors’ later testimony that they clearly identified themselves as investigators on Bell’s defense team.
Edwards was one of several witnesses called to testify at Monday’s evidentiary hearing. A second man, Charles Jones, also signed an affidavit the prior week recanting his trial testimony implicating Bell. Both men claimed they had been coerced to lie 30 years earlier – and that they were now wracked with guilt over Bell’s impending execution.
In their affidavits, both men said now-deceased Jacksonville Detective William Bolena and Assistant State Attorney George Bateh pressured them to testify falsely, feeding them information to help them tell compelling stories on the witness stand.
But they disavowed their affidavits Monday after hearing Circuit Judge Jeb Branham say they could face perjury charges if they stood by their recantations.
Monday’s evidentiary hearing, a rarity at this stage in the death penalty process, came two weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant scheduling Bell’s execution.
Appellate attorney Bob Norgard argued that the witnesses should be granted immunity in the spirit of justice. After that argument was rejected, Jones repeatedly uttered “Fifth Amendment” when asked to confirm each sentence of his affidavit.
Edwards, during his testimony, told an incredulous Norgard that he thought they were discussing a movie script.
Norgard objected to Branham allowing the witnesses to use the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as a “blanket” protection.
“We developed evidence that witnesses were pressured, threatened to testify (in the 1995 trial) and now, when they want to come forward and tell the truth, they’re threatened with perjury based on police misconduct and prosecutor misconduct,” he said.
In all, the court heard from 10 witnesses, including investigators for the defense, relatives of Bell and one state witness, retired prosecutor George Bateh, who denied exerting any improper pressure on one witness, Bell’s aunt.
The Tributary recently profiled Bateh and his role in the prosecution of Kenneth Hartley, another Death Row inmate who has alleged misconduct by both Bateh and Bolena. Bateh, who was viewed for years as a leader in the Fourth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office,has declined to discuss his involvement in that case.
According to Norgard, attorneys for Hartley reached out to Bell’s legal team because they had talked to Jones and Edwards in their own investigation of Bateh and Bolena.
Prosecutors in their closing statements pointed to Jones and Edwards’s refusal in court to recant, saying Bell’s defense had proved nothing that merited undoing Bell’s conviction.
After sitting through the testimony, Melanie Kalmanson, a Jacksonville attorney who runs the Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty blog and has done extensive death penalty-related pro bono work, said: “It is disheartening that witnesses, whose testimony could save Michael Bell’s life, appeared hesitant to give their full testimony and set the record straight after three decades due to fear of being prosecuted for perjury. Effectively, the threat of perjury charges silenced the truth in Michael Bell’s case today.”
Testimony Monday
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. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant on June 13, scheduling Bell’s execution for the following month.
After the warrant was signed, Norgard said he was contacted by the team who is representing Hartley. They tipped him off that they had spoken with Edwards and Jones and that both men would recant their testimony.
In the affidavit he signed last week, Edwards swore 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.
Witnesses did offer new details about Edwards’s relationship with Bolena, including that he was a longtime paid confidential informant for the detective.
Norgard said his team has documents that show Edwards also had a relationship with Bateh, and that the prosecutor had intervened to help get him relief in a federal case. Edwards did not testify to that, however.
His ex-wife, Cathy Robertson confirmed that Edwards was an informant for the detective when they were married in the 1990s, and that when Edwards was serving jail time, Bolena would pick him up at the jail, provide him with street clothes, and take him home for visits before bringing him back to the jail. Robertson said Bolena gave the family cash “to just help out.”
Glory Mitchell, a family friend, also confirmed the relationship between Edwards and Bolena, and further stated that Bolena would physically “beat” Edwards.
Erica Braclet, who testified in 1995 that Bell had been determined to get revenge for his brother’s murder, said she was pulled into a police interrogation room for 11 to 14 hours and that officers screamed at her, seeking information.
“I don’t recall them trying to be nice,” she said. She, too, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when she was asked if she was threatened with being charged as an accessory to murder.
And Paula Goins, Bell’s aunt, described a tense and confusing police interview in which she was told that she could lose her job and custody of her grandchild if she didn’t testify the way the state wanted.
In his affidavit, Charles Jones said Detective Bolena approached him in jail in 1994 and “coerced him to testify against Bell by offering to help him with [Jones’s] charges, Detective Bolena and prosecutor George Bateh told him what to say at trial.”
Colin Kelly, the investigator who interviewed Jones, said that when he met with Jones at the Hamilton Correctional Institution Annex he told Jones that a death warrant had been signed for Bell.
“He deflated,” Kelly said of the inmate, adding that Jones sighed and said, “OK, I’ll talk to you guys.”
Kelly said Jones freely spoke with him and another investigator and said he “needed to get this off his chest and that it was time to come forward and tell the truth.”
There in the prison conference, Jones told Kelly his testimony had been “all a lie” and that “he was coached to do it,” according to the investigator.
Edwards and Jones both read through their affidavits, paragraph-by-paragraph, with Kelly before signing off, the investigator said.
Nichole Manna is The Tributary’s senior investigative reporter. You can reach her at nichole.manna@jaxtrib.org.
