Jones v. State · No. SC2024-1135 (Fla.) · Decided October 15, 2026
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The Florida Supreme Court has reversed the denial of postconviction relief for Henry Lee Jones, directed that his conviction for the 2003 murder of Carlos Perez be set aside, and remanded for a new trial, holding that the State violated Brady v. Maryland by withholding records of FDLE analysts’ conclusions about DNA evidence. Two justices dissented.
What Happened
Jones was convicted of and sentenced to death for the murder of nineteen-year-old Carlos Perez, whose body was found at a Melbourne motel on August 27, 2003. The Court affirmed on direct appeal. Jones v. State, 212 So. 3d 321 (Fla. 2017). The State’s evidence included a hair on the carpet matching Jones’s mitochondrial DNA profile, footwear impressions consistent with shoes found in his car, and evidence of the similarity of the killing to other murders, including the Tennessee murders of Clarence and Lillian James, for which, according to the opinion, Jones was convicted in Tennessee state court and sentenced to death.
The State’s theory at trial also addressed DNA from a woman, Deborah Williams Bello, found on Perez’s penis. Bello lived at the motel. According to FDLE conversation logs, in a July 2012 call the lead detective and a crime scene investigator told an FDLE analyst, Ashley Garner, that they believed Bello’s DNA got there by “secondary transfer from the comforter,” and Garner told them the theory “sounded highly unlikely.” The next month, after Garner and her supervisor reviewed the data, they told the detective they “both agree that it is highly unlikely that it was secondard [sic] transfer from the comforter in another room to the room where the victim was found to being on the victims [sic] penis. It is more than likely a direct contact of some sort.”
The State had those logs more than a year before trial and did not produce them in discovery. In an April 2013 deposition, when Jones’s public defender asked the detective whether she had spoken with FDLE about Bello’s DNA, she responded in part that “the comforters were not being cleaned.” At trial the State advanced the secondary-transfer theory through a motel maid, the medical examiner, and a detective, and argued in closing that Bello’s DNA was “entirely explainable” by secondary transfer through an unwashed comforter. Bello testified that she never met or saw Perez.
In postconviction proceedings, the court found that the State withheld the logs “either willfully or inadvertently” and that the evidence was “favorable to the defense because it place[d] another person at the hotel with the victim near the time of his death,” but concluded that “the evidence is not exculpatory,” reasoning that “[i]t is entirely possible that the victim had a sexual encounter with Bello and that the Defendant killed the victim.”
What the Court Held
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Couriel stated that Jones raised four claims but the Court needed to address only one. Under Brady, a defendant must show that (1) the evidence was exculpatory or impeaching, (2) it was willfully or inadvertently suppressed by the State, and (3) because it was material, the defendant was prejudiced. The Court deferred to the postconviction court’s factual findings that were supported by competent, substantial evidence and reviewed the application of law to facts de novo.
On the first element, the Court held that the logs “could have been used to impeach several of the State’s witnesses, and to attack the rigor of the State’s investigation.” The detective and medical examiner testified that secondary transfer was a viable explanation, while the logs “show that FDLE analysts had concluded just the opposite,” and the logs could have been used to impeach Bello’s testimony that she never met Perez. On the second element, the Court agreed with the postconviction court that the State withheld the logs, noting that the State did not contest the point and that the lead detective knew of FDLE’s assessment, which triggered the State’s Brady obligations. Jones’s counsel had asked the detective specifically about conversations with FDLE, and her answer “actually advanced the secondary transfer theory.”
On materiality, the Court looked at “the aggregate effect” of the withheld evidence. It wrote that the logs “would have materially enhanced Jones’s ability to contest” the testimony on secondary transfer, “upon which the State relied in summation as an innocent explanation,” would have provided a basis to impeach Bello and to contest the State’s exclusion of another person from the scene, and would have bearing on the State’s portrayal of the crime as sexually charged. The Court acknowledged that “the State’s theory relied heavily—even primarily—on the similarity of this crime to the murders of Clarence and Lillian James,” but said “so too did the State advance its secondary transfer theory as a central component of its case.” Because the withheld evidence could have been used to draw that theory into question, the Court could not say there was no “reasonable probability that the jury verdict would have been different.”
The Court reversed the denial of postconviction relief, directed that the conviction be set aside, and remanded for a new trial. Jones’s remaining claims were rendered moot. Justices Labarga, Muñiz, Grosshans, and Francis concurred.
The Dissent
Justice Barrios, joined by Justice Tanenbaum, dissented on materiality. He wrote that the secondary-transfer theory “can hardly be considered central to the case,” and that the State’s closing relied on evidence, including the pattern of similar murders, the matching hair, footwear impressions, and items found in Jones’s vehicle, “none of which would have been undermined by the secondary transfer theory.” In his view, “the evidence against Jones was overwhelming,” and there was no reasonable probability the call logs would have changed the verdict. In a footnote he also said he found compelling the postconviction court’s conclusion that the evidence was not exculpatory, that Jones had characterized the nondisclosure as a Giglio violation rather than as impeachment evidence under Brady, leaving that argument unpreserved, and that Garner had said secondary transfer was “highly unlikely,” not impossible.
Why It Matters
The ruling applies Brady to records of crime-lab analysts’ views that were known to the lead detective but never produced, and it considers their value for impeaching State witnesses, for challenging the State’s exclusion of another person from the scene, and for rebutting the State’s sexually charged narrative in assessing materiality. The opinion is not final until the time to file a rehearing motion expires and, if one is filed, it is determined.
The Opinion
Download the full opinion (PDF)
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
| Case No. | SC2024-1135 |
| Opinion by | Chief Justice Couriel (Justices Labarga, Muñiz, Grosshans, and Francis concurring; Justice Barrios dissenting with opinion, joined by Justice Tanenbaum) |
| Decided | October 15, 2026 |
| Result | Reversed; conviction set aside; remanded for a new trial |