Escambia County: Circuit court denies Tina Brown's request for postconviction relief
On April 24, the circuit court denied Tina Brown’s motion for postconviction relief based on newly discovered evidence of false testimony at her trial.
Tina Brown is one of two women currently on Florida’s death row. (The full list of people on Florida’s death row can be found here.) She was originally sentenced to death in September 2012.1
In August 2022, Brown filed a Successive Motion to Vacate Conviction and Sentences asking the trial court to vacate her conviction and sentence of death based on newly discovered evidence of false testimony at her trial. Specifically, the Motion argues that newly discovered evidence indicates that a critical witness’s testimony against Brown at trial was false.
The full Motion can be downloaded here.
In early April, after the trial court held an evidentiary hearing on Brown’s claims, the parties submitted written closing arguments. On April 24, the circuit court denied Brown’s Motion in a 19-page Order.
The circuit court determined that (1) Brown “fail[ed] to show her claim of newly discovered evidence is timely” because she waited several years after learning of the witness’s false statements to file her claim, (2) Brown “failed to establish [the witness’s] recantation is truthful,” and (3) Brown “fails to show [that the] newly discovered evidence would probably result in a lesser sentence or retrial.”
The full Order can be downloaded here.
On May 9, Brown filed a motion for rehearing of the circuit court’s ruling. If the circuit court denies rehearing, Brown’s next step would be to appeal the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court.