The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a decision by a Duval circuit judge rejecting relief for a Death Row inmate – despite signed affidavits by two prosecution witnesses who said they were coerced by the state to lie.

Michael Bell is scheduled to die on July 15. 

In their order, the justices also denied Bell’s motion for a stay of execution and his request for a hearing.

Attorneys for Bell can now petition the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution.

Bell, 54, was convicted of killing a Jacksonville 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 also later pleaded guilty to three other murders: a woman and her toddler son in 1989 and the killing of his mother’s boyfriend about four months after the West-Smith murders. 

The jury in the West-Smith case unanimously recommended a death sentence for each conviction. 

Soon after the death warrant was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the legal team representing Bell submitted affidavits from two witnesses who testified in the 1995 trial. Each claimed in the affidavits that they were coached to give false trial testimony by Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Detective William Bolena.

Charles Jones told investigators for Bell’s team that Bolena, now deceased, 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.

Henry Edwards, another witness in the trial, signed an affidavit stating he did not see Bell don a ski mask and commit the murders, contrary to his trial testimony, but rather only heard gunshots from his vantage point inside a liquor store.

Edwards, who was in jail at the time he said he was coerced, said his reward was that Bolena would pick him up from the lockup, provide him with street clothes and drop him off at home for family visits.

However, during a June 23 evidentiary hearing on the claims of perjured testimony, Edwards took back his recantation, and Jones invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination after both were told that formally recanting could lead to perjury charges. 

Bell’s appellate attorney, Bob Norgard, argued that the witnesses should have been granted immunity in the spirit of seeking justice. After that argument was rejected, Jones repeatedly uttered “Fifth Amendment” when asked to confirm each sentence of his affidavit. Edwards, during his testimony, said he thought the investigator interviewing him was discussing a fictionalized movie script. 

Norgard objected to Circuit Judge Jeb Branham allowing the witnesses to use the Fifth Amendment as a “blanket” protection.

The next day, Branham denied relief for Bell, refusing to grant a new trial or a resentencing hearing. Branham said he found Edwards to be more credible than Bell’s investigator, who did not record his interviews with either man.

In his appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Norgard argued he found additional witnesses to back up the claims he made in the original motion.

However, the justices ultimately decided that the information was not timely. Bell’s legal team also argued that the timeframe between the death warrant and planned execution — a little over a month — was not adequate time to fight for a stay. The court rejected the argument with Justice Jorge Labarga adding, “I am convinced that Bell was provided with adequate notice and opportunity to be heard in these successive postconviction proceedings. However, I feel compelled to again express my concerns about the extremely short time frame for this case and other recent death warrant cases.”

If put to death, Bell will be the eighth person executed by the state this year following June’s execution of Thomas Gudinas, 51, who was convicted of raping and killing Michelle McGrath outside of an Orlando bar in 1994.

Nichole Manna is The Tributary’s senior investigative reporter. You can reach her at nichole.manna@floridatrib.org.