Admissibility and Diligence as Gatekeepers in Successive Rule 3.851 Motions: Florida Supreme Court Rejects Third-Party Confession Declarations and “New Support for Old Claims”

Introduction

In Ernest D. Suggs v. State of Florida, Nos. SC2024-0660 & SC2024-0702 (Fla. Sept. 4, 2025), the Florida Supreme Court (Grosshans, J.) affirmed the summary denial of the defendant’s third and fourth successive postconviction motions under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. Suggs, on death row for the 1990 kidnapping and murder of Pauline Casey and the robbery of the Teddy Bear Bar, sought relief based on a suite of theories—newly discovered evidence under Jones v. State, alleged State suppression under Brady v. Maryland, presentation of false testimony under Giglio v. United States, a Sixth Amendment violation under Massiah v. United States, and an asserted due process violation tied to a prior Florida Supreme Court appeal.

The case centers on whether six items of evidence—primarily declarations that a serial killer (Mark Riebe) confessed, an alleged willingness of a jailhouse witness to recant, a deposition from an unrelated case implying systemic prosecutorial misconduct, and statements from a law enforcement officer about witness coaching—qualify as newly discovered evidence, satisfy Rule 3.851’s stringent timeliness requirements, and would likely change the result at trial. The Court’s answer was a firm no, coupled with holdings that sharpen the lines on diligence, admissibility, and the impermissibility of re-packaging old claims with new proof.

Summary of the Opinion

Affirmance of summary denial: The Supreme Court affirmed without an evidentiary hearing because the claims were legally insufficient, procedurally barred, untimely, or conclusively refuted by the record.
Rule 3.851 timeliness and diligence: The Court strictly enforced the one-year time bar for successive motions, emphasizing the movant’s burden to demonstrate due diligence and to file within one year of when facts could have been discovered with diligence.
Newly discovered evidence (Jones): Declarations of third-party confessions were untimely, inadmissible hearsay, and insufficient to probably produce an acquittal. Claims premised on a witness’s longstanding alleged perjury and systemic misconduct evidence were time-barred, previously litigated, speculative, and/or inadmissible.
Brady: Suppression claims tied to the third-party confessions failed on timeliness and on the merits because there was no showing the confessions predated trial or were known to the State then. Brady claims based on alleged false inmate testimony were also barred.
Giglio and Massiah: These claims had been litigated and rejected nearly two decades ago and were therefore procedurally barred, as well as untimely.
Due process challenge to prior appeal: A circuit court cannot grant relief from a Florida Supreme Court decision; the claim was meritless and procedurally barred.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and How They Shaped the Decision

Jones v. State, 709 So. 2d 512 (Fla. 1998): Establishes the two-prong test for newly discovered evidence (unknown and not discoverable through diligence at trial; and probably produce an acquittal on retrial). The Court applied Jones to hold:
- Declarations recounting alleged confessions by a third party (Riebe) were untimely and inadmissible hearsay, failing prong one (diligence) and threshold admissibility analysis within prong two.
- Even assuming admissibility, the declarations lacked the necessary impact to probably produce an acquittal in light of strong physical and circumstantial evidence against Suggs.
Sparre v. State, 391 So. 3d 404 (Fla. 2024): Reiterates that summary denial is proper if claims are legally insufficient, procedurally barred, or conclusively refuted by the record. The Court used Sparre to affirm the denial without a hearing.
Hutchinson v. State, No. SC2025-0517, 50 Fla. L. Weekly S71 (Fla. Apr. 25, 2025): Confirms strict enforcement of Rule 3.851’s one-year limit for successive motions. The Court cited Hutchinson as part of its timeliness analysis.
Rivera v. State, 187 So. 3d 822 (Fla. 2015); Jimenez v. State, 997 So. 2d 1056 (Fla. 2008); Stein v. State, 406 So. 3d 171 (Fla. 2024): Emphasize the movant’s duty to demonstrate diligence; failure to pursue obvious leads promptly is fatal. The Court invoked these to find Suggs could have interviewed key declarants decades earlier.
Sliney v. State, 362 So. 3d 186 (Fla. 2023): Clarifies the “predicate facts vs. proof” distinction: new evidence used to support an already-known predicate fact does not restart the Rule 3.851 clock. The Court used Sliney to reject reliance on a 2021 deposition (Ozio) as “newly discovered evidence” for a long-known false-testimony claim.
Dailey v. State, 329 So. 3d 1280 (Fla. 2021): A previously known claim does not become newly discovered each time a new detail emerges. The Court used Dailey to reject the argument that a witness’s present willingness to recant turned decades-old knowledge into “new” evidence.
Bogle v. State, 322 So. 3d 44 (Fla. 2021); Reynolds v. State, 373 So. 3d 1124 (Fla. 2023): Successive Rule 3.851 motions cannot re-litigate claims that were or could have been raised earlier. The Court used these to bar multiple claims, including revived Giglio and Massiah arguments.
Mungin v. State, 320 So. 3d 624 (Fla. 2020): The movant bears the burden to establish the timeliness of successive claims. Applied against Suggs regarding the Crenshaw material.
Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973): The Court explained that Chambers does not create a free-standing exception for unreliable hearsay; it applies only to trustworthy, critical evidence. Riebe’s serial confessions and recantations undermined trustworthiness.
Florida Evidence Code: §§ 90.802, 90.804, 90.608, Fla. Stat.: The Court found the confession declarations to be inadmissible hearsay (§ 90.802), not qualifying for the statement-against-interest exception without unavailability and corroboration (§ 90.804(2)(c)), and noted limits on impeachment evidence (§ 90.608).
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); In re Bolin, 811 F.3d 403 (11th Cir. 2016): Brady does not extend to post-trial statements unknown at trial; nor does it help where defendant fails to show the State’s pretrial knowledge. The Court used Bolin to reject Brady claims premised on alleged post-trial confessions.
Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972); Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964): The Court deemed Suggs’s Giglio and Massiah claims previously litigated and procedurally barred.
State v. Lott, 286 So. 2d 565 (Fla. 1973); Reiter v. Gross, 599 So. 2d 1275 (Fla. 1992); State v. Dwyer, 332 So. 2d 333 (Fla. 1976): Circuit courts are bound by Florida Supreme Court decisions; they cannot grant relief from those rulings. The Court used these to dispose of Suggs’s due process claim attacking a prior appellate decision.

Legal Reasoning

The decision is anchored in Rule 3.851’s structure and the Jones framework:

Timeliness and due diligence under Rule 3.851: The Court reiterated that successive postconviction claims must be filed within one year of when the factual basis could have been discovered through due diligence. For the third-party confession declarations, diligence was lacking because:
- Patsy Wells (mother of Alex Wells and Mark Riebe) was an obvious source of potentially relevant information since at least 1997, when Suggs posited Alex Wells as an alternate perpetrator.
- Randy Sheheane testified against Riebe in 1997 in the Donna Callahan murder; Suggs had long suggested a link between that case and Casey’s murder.
- As to Randy Ray Chapman, Suggs failed to establish when the information surfaced or why it could not have been obtained earlier.
The Court thus held the confession-based Jones and Brady claims untimely; additionally, portions were procedurally barred for failure to raise them when they were or should have been known in prior proceedings.
Admissibility threshold within Jones: The Court emphasized that before asking whether “new” evidence would probably produce an acquittal, courts must assess admissibility. The confession declarations were inadmissible hearsay (§ 90.802):
- No showing that Riebe was “unavailable” or that corroborating circumstances existed to admit a statement against penal interest under § 90.804(2)(c).
- Chambers did not override the Evidence Code because Riebe’s history of confessing and recanting eroded trustworthiness—the predicate for any Chambers-based due process argument.
Even if admitted, the declarations had limited probative value (two did not even identify Casey) and were overwhelmed by strong physical and circumstantial evidence tying Suggs to the crime.
“New support for old claims” does not reset the clock: For claims alleging Taylor and Byars lied at trial—raised in the 1990s and earlier postconviction litigation—Suggs relied on:
- A present alleged willingness by Taylor to recant. The Court, citing Dailey, held that a new detail does not render the underlying fact “newly discovered.” Moreover, Suggs lacked even an affidavit from Taylor and had not pursued compulsion avenues over decades.
- A 2021 deposition (Ozio) from an unrelated case about generalized pressure on inmates. Relying on Sliney, the Court distinguished between “predicate facts” (alleged false testimony at Suggs’s trial) and “proof” (Ozio’s deposition), holding that new proof of an old predicate does not qualify as newly discovered facts under Rule 3.851(d)(2)(A). The deposition’s relevance and admissibility were also dubious, and it was speculative as to Taylor/Byars.
- Statements from Deputy Crenshaw, which reasonably could have been obtained as early as 2003 and were therefore untimely, with the defendant failing to meet his burden under Mungin.
Brady limits and application: The Court rejected the idea that alleged third-party confessions could sustain Brady relief where:
- No evidence showed the State knew of the confessions before trial.
- Under In re Bolin, Brady does not apply to post-trial confessions.
- As with the Jones analysis, the claims were time-barred and could have been raised earlier with diligence.
Brady claims based on Taylor/Ozio/Crenshaw failed for the same timeliness and bar reasons.
Giglio and Massiah—procedural bars: The Court noted that Suggs’s Giglio and Massiah claims had been litigated and rejected in his initial postconviction appeal (Suggs II), so they were procedurally barred in this successive round (Reynolds), and untimely in any event.
Due process and institutional roles: The Court underscored that circuit courts cannot grant relief from Florida Supreme Court decisions. Litigants who believe a Supreme Court opinion relied on extra-record material must pursue relief through vehicles like motions for rehearing in the Supreme Court—indeed, Suggs had already attempted that. Re-raising the issue in circuit court is both meritless and procedurally barred.

Impact

This decision, while not announcing a brand-new standard, meaningfully clarifies and strengthens several important gatekeeping doctrines in Florida capital postconviction practice:

Strict enforcement of diligence and timeliness: The Court’s application of Hutchinson, Rivera, Jimenez, and Stein signals unwavering adherence to Rule 3.851’s one-year limitation and the defendant’s burden to show diligence—especially in successive motions. Practitioners cannot wait years to interview obvious leads or to memorialize recantations.
Admissibility as a Jones threshold: The Court’s insistence on admissibility before considering the probability-of-acquittal prong will reduce evidentiary hearings built on hearsay that cannot clear § 90.804’s unavailability and corroboration requirements. Chambers cannot be invoked to launder untrustworthy hearsay.
No “bootstrapping” via ancillary proof: Citing Sliney and Dailey, the Court reaffirms that new supporting material for an old claim does not reset the postconviction clock. This limits strategic repackaging of long-known allegations with newly found corroboration.
Narrowing Brady’s reach: The ruling conforms to federal and state doctrine that Brady is about pretrial suppression by the State; post-trial confessions do not trigger Brady, and unsupported assertions of State knowledge fail the threshold showing.
Finality in recidivist Giglio/Massiah claims: Claims previously raised and rejected cannot be revived absent truly new predicate facts that satisfy Rule 3.851. The Court’s reliance on Reynolds and Bogle underscores the high bar for relitigation.
Institutional boundaries respected: Litigants may not use circuit-court postconviction motions to collaterally attack Florida Supreme Court decisions; challenges must be made in the Supreme Court through proper procedural devices.

Taken together, the opinion will likely curtail successive capital postconviction filings premised on generalized misconduct allegations, delayed witness interviews, or non-admissible third-party confession statements. It also offers a roadmap for trial courts to summarily deny such claims without evidentiary hearings when the record and procedural posture compel that outcome.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Rule 3.851 (successive motions): Florida’s rule for death-sentenced prisoners imposes a one-year filing limit for collateral claims. Successive motions are permitted only in narrow circumstances, such as newly discovered facts that could not have been known earlier through diligence. The movant must both plead and prove diligence and timeliness.
Jones “newly discovered evidence” test: A two-part inquiry:
1. Was the evidence unknown at trial and not discoverable with reasonable diligence?
2. Is the evidence admissible and of such a nature that it would probably produce an acquittal on retrial?
Courts must consider admissibility before assessing impact.
Hearsay and the statement-against-interest exception (§ 90.804(2)(c)): Hearsay is generally inadmissible. A declaration against penal interest may be admissible if the declarant is unavailable and the statement is corroborated. Unavailability and corroborating circumstances are essential; repeated confession/recantation cycles can negate trustworthiness.
Chambers v. Mississippi principle: While due process can sometimes require admission of reliable third-party confessions, Chambers is limited to trustworthy, critical evidence. It does not override evidentiary rules for untrustworthy hearsay.
Brady: The State must disclose material, exculpatory evidence in its possession before trial. Brady does not cover confessions arising after trial, nor speculation that the State “must have known” absent proof.
Giglio: The State may not present testimony it knows is false. But a defendant cannot relitigate Giglio claims already decided, absent truly new, diligent, and timely facts.
Massiah: The government may not deliberately elicit statements from a defendant after the right to counsel attaches using planted informants. Re-raising the same Massiah claim previously rejected is procedurally barred without new predicate facts.
Predicate facts vs. proof (Sliney): The “facts on which the claim is predicated” (e.g., “witness X lied”) differ from the “evidence used to prove those facts” (e.g., a new affidavit). New proof of an old predicate does not equate to newly discovered facts under Rule 3.851.
Summary denial standard (Sparre): Courts may deny without an evidentiary hearing where the claim is legally insufficient, time-barred, previously decided, or conclusively refuted by the record.

Conclusion

The Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Suggs v. State reinforces three core lessons for capital postconviction litigation: timeliness and due diligence are non-negotiable; admissibility is a threshold, not an afterthought; and previously litigated claims cannot be revived with repackaged proof. Third-party confession declarations—especially those beset by reliability concerns and offered without unavailability and corroboration—will not open the Jones gateway. Brady remains tethered to pretrial State knowledge, and generalized evidence of misconduct from unrelated proceedings cannot resuscitate stale false-testimony claims. Finally, circuit courts are not forums for collateral attacks on Florida Supreme Court decisions.

In a landscape where finality and fairness must coexist, this opinion underscores that the path to relitigation in successive Rule 3.851 proceedings is narrow and exacting. Defendants and counsel must move with urgency, document diligence, and marshal admissible, material, and outcome-altering evidence. Absent that showing, summary denial is not just permissible—it is compelled.

Case and Counsel

Case: Ernest D. Suggs v. State of Florida, Nos. SC2024-0660 & SC2024-0702 (Fla. Sept. 4, 2025). Opinion by Grosshans, J.; all Justices concurring.

Counsel: Dawn B. Macready, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel (Northern Region), for Appellant; James Uthmeier, Attorney General, and Janine D. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, for Appellee.