Left: Erica Dotson (Brevard County Sheriff”s Office). Right: Jameson Nance (West Melbourne Police Department).
Jameson Nance was all of 3 years old when he was battered and beaten to death in Florida in 2021. Now, a judge in the Sunshine State has declared a mistrial in the case against one of his accused killers.
Erica Beth Dotson, 31, stands accused of one count each of premeditated murder in the first degree, aggravated manslaughter of a child, aggravated child abuse, and child neglect with great bodily harm, according to Brevard County Sheriff’s Office records.
Her trial began in late August. On Tuesday, those proceedings reached a premature – and likely far from final – conclusion.
The mistrial came as 18th Judicial Circuit Judge Steve Henderson administered a sharp upbraiding to prosecutors for discovery-related issues.
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The court angrily criticized prosecutors for their apparent intentional withholding of evidence from the defendant, according to a courtroom report by Daytona Beach-based NBC affiliate WESH.
“Discovery is black and white,” the judge intoned. “It says subsection B, prosecutor discover obligations and then under subsection D: any written or recorded statements and the substance of any oral statements made by a defendant. Period. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. The state is required to turn over any co-defendant statements and the state has failed to do that. I don’t know why the state failed to do that but you know it did. It is a discovery violation so the court’s going to look at the factors. The court’s going to find that it was a willful violation, willfully failed to provide the defense with the copy of the recorded proffer of the co-defendant.”
On the day in question, police responded to a 911 call about a “child not breathing” at an apartment on Lago Circle in West Melbourne, a small city located roughly 70 miles southeast of Orlando.
There, officers were greeted at the stairs by Dotson. She was holding the lifeless body of 3-year-old Jameson in her arms. An autopsy would show the child suffered from prolonged “battered child syndrome” with a litany of injuries inflicted weeks before his death including a broken tooth “pushed into” his gums, a cut on his jaw, a fractured right rib and left arm, a ruptured esophagus, and seven separate stab wounds — some fresh, some healing — to his head, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by Law&Crime.
A litany of grim allegations followed, with prosecutors specifically alleging that Dotson allowed her child to be abused by her then-boyfriend, Joshua Andrew Manns, 29. Or, at the very least, that the mother knew about the abuse but never did anything to put a stop to it.
The onetime couple had their trials separated by the court, based on a defense request, earlier this year, due to the narratives each co-defendant supplied about their respective culpability.
Now, the judge says prosecutors’ handling of the co-defendants during individualized pretrial discussions was not aboveboard.
“Court’s gonna find that it was a substantial violation and the court’s gonna find that the defense was prejudged by the state withholding the codefendant’s statements,” Henderson went on. “Primarily because the state used that proffer and those statements from Mr. Manns against the defendant in this case on cross-examination.”
On Monday, Dotson took the stand in her own defense – pleading ignorance about the cause of her son’s injuries but admitting she knew the boy was, at least in some way, having trouble living.
“I genuinely believed my son was just having accidents. I believed everything that Josh said,” Dotson testified. “I just didn’t see what was going on. I wasn’t home much.”
However, on cross-examination, the state referenced Manns’ allegations against Dotson – including claims the mother “would kick” and “hit” her son when angry – catching the defense off-guard.
“The specificity of those allegations gives us concern that there was a discovery violation,” defense attorney Sarah Moore told the court. “If those were allegations made by the co-defendant, they were not disclosed to us.”
Now, the prosecution will have to reconsider its strategy. The judge noted the severity of the discovery violation in relation to the severity of the charges the defendant faces.
“We’re not talking about a third-degree felony,” Judge Henderson said. “We’re talking about [a] death penalty case. The state should have turned this over. I’m gonna order the state to turn this over today and I will declare a mistrial.”
The case is now on hold until Oct. 29. During a calendar call on that date, the state will decide if and when to schedule Dotson’s retrial.
