Correction, October 22, 2026: the Court corrected the opinion to say three aggravating factors, not four.
In Rhodes v. State, No. SC2024-1099, decided July 2, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of postconviction relief to Richard Wallace Rhodes, who was sentenced to death for a 1984 murder, on four claims: Brady, Giglio, Massiah and newly discovered evidence. Two jailhouse informants who testified against him later gave affidavits attacking their trial testimony, and one, Edward Cottrell, said the State manufactured it. The Court held that the postconviction court’s finding that the two were not credible was supported by competent, substantial evidence, and affirmed the denial of all four of Rhodes’s claims. Rehearing was denied on October 22, 2026.
The facts. In March 1984, a Florida Highway Patrol officer stopped Rhodes while he was driving a car registered to Karen Nieradka. Her decomposing body was found weeks later in debris from a demolished Clearwater hotel, and the medical examiner found that she had been manually strangled. At Rhodes’s jury trial, several fellow inmates from the Pinellas and Citrus County jails testified for the State, including Edward Cottrell and Harvey Duranseau. Cottrell testified that Rhodes confessed to the murder. Rhodes was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. On direct appeal the Court affirmed the conviction but remanded for a new sentencing proceeding, at which Rhodes again received a death sentence, which the Court affirmed in 1994. The Court affirmed the denial of two earlier postconviction motions as well.
The new claims. In 2023 Rhodes filed a successive motion under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851 with three affidavits. Duranseau said a detective offered to return property the State had seized from him if he testified against Rhodes. Cottrell said law enforcement officers and prosecutors “coached and manipulated” him, told him what to ask Rhodes and what to say at trial, and promised him a lighter sentence, and that Rhodes had actually told him he did not commit the murder. Rhodes raised three constitutional claims and one claim of newly discovered evidence. The postconviction court held an evidentiary hearing at which Rhodes called eight witnesses, including six jailhouse witnesses, and the State called six. The court found Rhodes’s jailhouse witnesses not credible and denied all relief.
The holding. The Court, in a per curiam opinion, affirmed on all four claims. Its reasoning rested on credibility:
- Deference to credibility findings. The Court said it will not substitute its judgment for the postconviction court’s on witness credibility, and noted that the testimony of a recanting witness is, “as a general matter, ‘exceedingly unreliable.'”
- Why the recanting witnesses were not believed. Neither Cottrell nor Duranseau explained why they waited nearly forty years. The law enforcement witnesses contradicted them. Cottrell had nineteen prior felony convictions. Before his affidavit, Cottrell had consistently said no one directed him to get information from Rhodes. And at the hearing Duranseau did not claim that his trial testimony was false. Two other defense witnesses, Henry Niblack and James Head, who said they never told police Rhodes made incriminating statements, also had multiple prior felony convictions and were contradicted by the officers and the police reports.
Brady. Rhodes argued the State suppressed evidence that Cottrell and Duranseau were state agents and that police fabricated reports. The Court affirmed the postconviction court’s conclusion that, because the witnesses were not credible, Rhodes had not shown that favorable evidence was suppressed. It added that even if it rejected the credibility finding, the claim would fail for lack of prejudice. The Court agreed with the postconviction court that the remaining admissible evidence at trial was “more than sufficient” to support the conviction: the victim was last seen with Rhodes, he was driving her car with a note he likely wrote, a pair of his pants had human blood on them, and he gave conflicting stories, including that she died at the Sunset Motel, a location that was never released to the public. Two other jailhouse witnesses, John Bennett and Michael Allen, never recanted. For the penalty phase, the Court said the State established three aggravating factors without the testimony of any jailhouse witness.
Giglio. To win on false testimony, a defendant must show that the State presented or failed to correct false testimony, knew it was false, and that it was material. The Court rejected Rhodes’s claims about Allen and Bennett as “pure speculation” (the opinion notes that neither recanted), and rejected the claims about Cottrell and Duranseau because, based on the postconviction court’s finding that they were not credible, the postconviction court properly concluded that Rhodes had not shown the State presented or failed to correct false testimony.
Massiah. The Sixth Amendment bars law enforcement from deliberately eliciting statements from a defendant after the right to counsel attaches, and the right is offense-specific. The Court held Rhodes’s right to counsel for the Nieradka murder attached only when he was arrested for it on April 27, 1984. When the State allegedly elicited statements from Duranseau, Rhodes was in the Citrus County Jail on unrelated charges. The claims about Allen and Bennett failed for lack of evidence, since neither testified at the hearing, and the claim about Cottrell failed on the credibility finding.
Newly discovered evidence. A defendant must show that the evidence was unknown at trial and could not have been found with due diligence, and that it would probably yield an acquittal on retrial for a conviction, or a less severe sentence for a sentence. Because the claim relied on admissions of perjury, credibility again controlled, and the Court affirmed the finding that Cottrell and Duranseau were not credible. It also affirmed the postconviction court’s separate finding that the evidence would not probably produce an acquittal on retrial, after weighing it against the trial evidence. The Court also held that such a claim must be supported by affidavits, so it rejected any claim about Allen and Bennett, who submitted none.
What the decision does not say. The Court did not decide that Cottrell and Duranseau lied in their affidavits or that the officers did nothing improper. It also did not rule on the State’s argument that two of the constitutional claims were procedurally barred as repeats of earlier claims, noting only that a postconviction court may deny a claim on that ground. It held that the postconviction court’s credibility findings were supported by competent, substantial evidence and that, even setting those findings aside, Rhodes could not show a reasonable probability of a different result under Brady.
Who joined. The opinion is per curiam. Chief Justice Couriel and Justices Labarga, Muñiz, Grosshans, Francis, Sasso and Tanenbaum concurred. J. Jervis Wise of Brunvand and Wise, P.A., represented Rhodes. The appeal came from the Pinellas County circuit court (Judge Joseph Anthony Bulone).
Status. The Court denied Rhodes’s motion for rehearing on October 22, 2026.
Read the opinion (PDF): Download the opinion (PDF)
Read the Court’s notice of correction (PDF): Download the notice of correction (PDF)
Source: Rhodes v. State, No. SC2024-1099 (Fla. July 2, 2026), on appeal from the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in and for Pinellas County, No. 521984CF003982. This article is general information, not legal advice.