Tina Lasonya Brown v. State of Florida

Supreme Court of Florida·Decided July 16, 2026·No. SC2024-0931·Published

Opinion

Supreme Court of Florida

No. SC2024-0931

TINA LASONYA BROWN,

Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

July 16, 2026

FRANCIS, J.

Tina Brown, a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the denial of her successive motion for postconviction relief and motion for public records, which are ultimately aimed at discrediting the trial testimony of co-perpetrator, Heather Lee. We affirm. 1 I.

A. Background

In 2010, Brown, Brown’s sixteen-year-old daughter Britnee Miller, and Heather Lee kidnapped Audreanna Zimmerman, beat

1. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

her with a crowbar, stunned her with a stun gun, and set her on fire. As part of a plea to second-degree murder, one of the perpetrators, Lee, testified in Brown’s trial that she, Brown, Miller, and Zimmerman were initially good friends, but the relationship with Zimmerman became volatile after Miller discovered Zimmerman was having a sexual affair with her boyfriend. According to Lee, Miller attacked Zimmerman one day, and Zimmerman defended herself with a stun gun. Lee later told Brown that Zimmerman used a stun gun on her daughter and reported that Brown said she was “going to get” Zimmerman. Brown v. State (Brown I), 143 So. 3d 392, 395 (Fla. 2014). An inmate housed with Brown in jail, Corie Doyle, corroborated Lee’s testimony, testifying that Brown said she told Miller, “don’t worry, I’ll take care of it” after hearing about the stun gun altercation. Id. at 403.

M.A., a thirteen-year-old friend of Miller’s, testified at trial that on the day Zimmerman was killed, she was present when Brown initiated the attack on Zimmerman with a stun gun and used the stun gun on her multiple times. She also testified that Brown forced Zimmerman into the trunk of the car and thought that Miller drove the car away with Brown and Lee inside.

Lee’s testimony about what happened before driving the car away was consistent with M.A.’s, and she further testified to what happened after they drove away. 2 Lee testified that they drove Zimmerman to the woods where Brown and Miller beat Zimmerman with a crowbar. Brown then poured gasoline on a still conscious Zimmerman, set her on fire, and watched as the screaming Zimmerman burned. Brown, Miller, and Lee left, and Zimmerman was able to walk to a nearby home for help. She told a responding EMT that Brown and Lee were her attackers and gave him their addresses. Later inside an ambulance, she told the paramedic that Brown, Miller, and Lee poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. Zimmerman ultimately succumbed to her injuries and died sixteen days later.

At trial, Brown’s cellmate, Doyle, further testified that Brown admitted she, Miller, and Lee “picked up the victim and beat her up and ta[s]ed her and set her on fire.” Brown v. State (Brown II), 304 So. 3d 243, 253 (Fla. 2020). Doyle testified that Brown also told her that Lee was there but “didn’t have anything to do with it.” Id.

2. Though Lee testified that Brown was driving.

Additionally, the State presented forensic evidence showing Brown’s DNA was found on the stun gun.

Based on the foregoing evidence, the State argued that Brown initiated the entire criminal episode and had the sole motive to murder Zimmerman, which was revenge on Zimmerman for using a stun gun on her daughter, Miller. The State also argued that, based on Lee’s testimony, it was Brown and only Brown who killed Zimmerman by dousing her with gasoline and lighting her on fire. In arguing for the death penalty, the State argued that Brown had the greatest level of involvement in the crime.

Brown was convicted of first-degree murder and, following a unanimous jury recommendation, sentenced to death. The trial court found the following aggravators: (1) the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification (CCP) (great weight); (2) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel (HAC) (great weight); and (3) the murder was committed while Brown was engaged in the commission of a kidnapping (significant weight). We affirmed her conviction and sentence on appeal. See Brown I, 143

So. 3d at 395. 3 Notably during the Spencer4 hearing, Brown admitted she participated in Zimmerman’s murder.

In 2015, Brown filed her initial motion for postconviction relief.

Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied all claims, including a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failing to adequately challenge the State’s guilt phase evidence through cross-examination of witnesses Lee and Doyle, and a claim of newly discovered evidence related to (a) Lee’s credibility as a witness and (b) her more central role in instigating the murder. 5 We affirmed the denial of Brown’s postconviction claims concerning Lee’s role and her credibility because while “the additional impeachment of Lee might result in a lesser sentence at a

3. Brown also presented mitigation evidence, which is further discussed under Section II of this opinion.

4. Spencer v. State, 615 So. 2d 688 (Fla. 1993).

5. Brown specifically pointed to an email from Lee’s trial attorney, which was disclosed to Brown’s counsel without authorization; posttrial confessions by Lee to fellow inmates; and evidence of Lee’s pattern of violence against individuals, like the victim, who engaged in affairs with Lee’s partners. Additionally, Brown presented evidence of Lee’s potential motive: that Lee’s husband, Darren Lee, had an affair with both Zimmerman and Brown, meaning Lee may have had a motive for the murder.

retrial,” we could not say “that it would probably result in a lesser sentence.” See Brown II, 304 So. 3d at 277. 6 This was because of the overwhelming evidence that Brown had a significant role in the murder, which included forensic evidence, the victim’s dying declaration, and the eyewitness testimony of M.A. concerning Brown’s role as the initial aggressor in her trailer. And we noted that were there a retrial, the jury would hear Brown’s Spencer hearing admission.

We also denied Brown’s habeas petition in which she asserted that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the prosecutor’s statements to the jury concerning Doyle. Id. at 279- 80.7

6. On appeal, Brown raised the following ineffective assistance of trial counsel (IAC) claims: (1) IAC during jury selection for failing to strike juror Taylor for cause; (2) IAC during the guilt phase for (a) failing to adequately challenge the State’s evidence through cross- examination of witnesses Heather Lee and Corie Doyle and (b) failing to present witnesses Darren Lee, Terrance Woods, and Nicole Henderson for purposes of impeachment; (3) IAC during the penalty phase for (a) failing to conduct a reasonably competent mitigation investigation and present adequate mitigation and (b) failing to consult and present additional mental health experts; and (4) she was denied a fundamentally fair trial based on cumulative IAC during the guilt and penalty phases.

7. In her habeas petition, Brown also raised a claim of

B. Successive Postconviction Motion & Evidentiary Hearing Brown filed a successive motion for postconviction relief in August 2022, raising a newly discovered evidence claim centered on the recantation of prosecution trial witness Doyle (Brown’s cellmate) and the supporting affidavit and testimony of Latoria Frazier (Doyle’s former cellmate who also knows Lee).8 Brown attached an affidavit from Doyle to her postconviction motion. In the affidavit, Doyle claimed Lee threatened her in prison to get her to testify that Brown’s motive for the crime was a fight between Miller and Zimmerman over a boy and that Lee was not involved in the murder but knew about it. Doyle further claimed in her affidavit that, contrary to her trial testimony, Lee told her that she was involved in Zimmerman’s death. Doyle claimed Lee told her that both she and Brown attacked Zimmerman with a taser (stun gun). Doyle also claimed that Lee held onto Zimmerman’s

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