Opinion ID: 1107764
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Omer Williamson's Motion and Testimony

Text: In a sworn postconviction motion filed in 1993, Omer asserted that he was coerced into pleading guilty to first-degree murder and testifying against Williamson. He claimed that his attorney negotiated the plea without his knowledge and that he was given five minutes to decide whether to accept the plea. Omer claimed he was told that if he did not sign the plea agreement, the State would sentence him to death that day and could not protect him from his codefendants. Omer also claimed that although he held Drew while Williamson stabbed the victim, he did so because he feared Williamson and did not agree of his own free will to participate, plan, or commit the act of murder. Omer testified that he did not pursue the motion and the record reflects it was denied in 1994 on several grounds, including that it was not timely filed. In his testimony during the evidentiary hearing, Omer reaffirmed his allegations of the coercive circumstances of the plea, except that he said he was never told he would not be protected from his codefendants. However, he stated that he agreed to tell the truth about the killing, including that he and Williamson had a plan to kill Drew that included a prearranged signal. Omer testified that he would have continued to pursue the motion if he thought it would help him, even though it contained falsehoods. This led to the following exchange: Q. All right. Sometimes the truth can be twisted according to how much you have to gain from what you're saying. A. I understand what you're saying, yes. Q. Is that fair to say, I mean? A. Yes. Baya Harrison, Omer's trial counsel, testified that Omer instructed him to negotiate a plea that would enable him to avoid the death penalty. Harrison said he was trying to beat Williamson's counsel to the prosecutor's office to make a deal. Harrison denied Omer's assertions that he encouraged Omer to lie under oath at Williamson's trial and that the state attorney had indicated he was the person to make the decision whether Omer received the death penalty. The trial court concluded that [t]he testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing fails to support the claim that Omer's trial testimony is now so discredited that [Williamson] probably would be acquitted on a retrial. The court also found Omer's testimony at the evidentiary hearing that there was a plan to murder Drew, and that, notwithstanding his earlier denial, he had willingly participated in that plan to be credible and persuasive. When the trial court rules on a newly discovered evidence claim after an evidentiary hearing, this Court reviews the court's findings on questions of fact, the credibility of witnesses, and the weight of the evidence for competent, substantial evidence. Melendez v. State, 718 So.2d 746, 747-48 (Fla.1998) (citing Blanco v. State, 702 So.2d 1250, 1251 (Fla.1997)). As with rulings on other postconviction claims, this Court reviews the trial court's application of the law to the facts de novo. See Hendrix v. State, 908 So.2d 412, 423 (Fla.2005) (reviewing de novo the trial court's application of the law to the facts in ruling on a postconviction claim that the government withheld material evidence); Gore v. State, 846 So.2d 461, 468 (Fla. 2003) (reviewing de novo the application of the law to the facts on a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel); Demps v. State, 761 So.2d 302, 306 (Fla.2000) (reviewing de novo the denial of a claim that newly discovered evidence of an internal prison memo reflecting that the victim named a different inmate as the assailant rendered death sentence disproportionate in light of the life sentences imposed on codefendants). Although Omer, in his postconviction motion, recanted his trial testimony that he willingly participated in a plan to commit the murder, he retracted the recantation during the evidentiary hearing. The trial court determined that Omer was credible and persuasive during the evidentiary hearing when he reaffirmed that he and Williamson planned Drew's murder. This Court does not substitute its judgment for that of the trial court on issues of fact when competent, substantial evidence supports the circuit court's factual findings or on issues of witness credibility. Smith v. State, 931 So.2d 790, 803 (Fla.2006) (citing Windom v. State, 886 So.2d 915, 921 (Fla.2004)). Accordingly, we defer to the trial court's findings crediting Omer's hearing testimony. Further, the trial court did not err as a matter of law in rejecting the assertion that Omer's trial testimony would be so discredited by the new evidence that Williamson would probably be acquitted in a retrial. The motion and evidentiary hearing testimony would constitute negligible impeachment at best. It was clear from the cross-examination that in agreeing to testify against Williamson and Robertson, the third codefendant, Omer avoided exposure to the death penalty. In addition, Omer admitted during trial that he had eighteen prior felony convictions and acknowledged he had lied to Williamson in stating that he was in prison for second-degree murder rather than sexual abuse of a child. The thrust of the new evidence, that Omer could lie to serve his own interest and had lied in his postconviction motion, would not be a revelation to jurors on retrial. Under similar circumstances, this Court affirmed the denial of a new trial in Brown v. State, 381 So.2d 690, 693 (Fla.1980). In that case, we agreed with the trial court that a witness's post trial recantation of testimony, followed by a clear retraction of the post trial statements, is not sufficient to overturn a jury verdict and sentence. Id.; cf. Duckett v. State, 918 So.2d 224, 233 (Fla.2005) (concluding that, in light of witness's refusal to testify at evidentiary hearing following recantation in post-trial interviews, it appears that she would not testify to anything new at a new trial and therefore the purported change in testimony would be unlikely to result in a new trial), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 103, 166 L.Ed.2d 78 (2006). As in Brown, the impeachment from Omer's sworn motion and postconviction hearing testimony is not such that it would probably result in an acquittal of Williamson for first-degree murder.