The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Richard Wallace Rhodes, turning away his latest challenge in the 1984 murder of a Pinellas County woman.
In an opinion released Thursday, the justices affirmed a lower court ruling that rejected Rhodes’ motion for postconviction relief. Rhodes, who was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Karen Nieradka, argued that sworn statements from two former jailhouse informants proved investigators and prosecutors coerced testimony and built a false case against him.
The high court concluded that the circuit court had ample reason to find those recantations unreliable…