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Thread: Albert Greenwood Brown, Jr. - California Death Row

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    Albert Greenwood Brown, Jr. - California Death Row


    Albert Greenwood Brown, Jr.


    Summary of Offense:

    Convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 in Riverside County for the October 1980 rape and murder of 15-year-old Susan Jordan.

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    August 31, 2010

    Execution date set for murderer of Riverside teen

    Albert Greenwood Brown's death warrant was signed and his execution will take place at San Quentin State Prison. Brown grabbed 15-year-old Susan Jordan in October 1980, as she walked along Victoria Avenue on her way to Arlington High School in Riverside, and raped and murdered the teenager.

    A Sept. 29 execution date was set today for a man who raped and murdered a Riverside teenager nearly 30 years ago.

    Albert Greenwood Brown’s death warrant was signed by Riverside Superior Court Judge Roger A. Luebs. His execution will take place at San Quentin State Prison.

    “Justice has been delayed for 30 years since Susan Jordan was murdered,” Chief Assistant District Attorney William Mitchell said. “It’s time we moved forward with this.”

    Brown’s attorney’s filed a request for an emergency stay, but it was denied Friday by the California Supreme Court, clearing the way for Luebs to set an execution date.

    Brown grabbed 15-year-old Susan Jordan in October 1980, as she walked along Victoria Avenue on her way to Arlington High School in Riverside, and raped and murdered the teenager.

    Brown then called the girl’s parents and told them they would never see their daughter alive again and could find her in a particular orange grove.

    Brown had been paroled from state prison just four months earlier for the 1977 rape of a 14-year-old girl.

    He was convicted of the older girl’s rape and murder in 1982 and sentenced to death.

    With the state Supreme Court’s action, all of Brown’s state and federal appeals and habeas corpus issues have been exhausted, District Attorney Rod Pacheco said.

    Defense attorney Jan. B Norman argued that the execution should be put off for another month, saying the procedures for lethal injection are under federal review for possible Eighth Amendment violations.

    “It’s very likely maybe some of these issues will be resolved,” Norman said.

    The judge said he was allowed to set the execution date as soon as 30 days and no later than 60 days after the D.A. filed a request for a death warrant. The execution date he set is the earliest possible by law.

    Norman said she will continue to fight for her client’s life by filing a clemency petition. She has only until Sept. 7 to do so.

    “The idea of preparing a petition for clemency in eight days is basically impossible,” she said, adding she needed to review old records and interview the defendant and his family.

    The judge defended his decision for the relatively early execution date.

    “Everybody wants more time,” he said. “At the end of the day, Sept. 29 is a reasonable date.”

    http://www.swrnn.com/southwest-river...riverside-teen

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    September 8, 2010

    Delay sought in Sept. 29 execution date

    The attorney for a Riverside County death row inmate who has an execution date set for Sept. 29 filed a plea with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday asking him to delay the date and let California's next governor decide on clemency for her client.

    Albert Greenwood Brown was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the October 1980 abduction, rape and murder of 15-year-old Susan Louise Jordan, whom he grabbed as she walked to her high school in Riverside.

    Attorney Jan Norman said in a news release that she believes Schwarzenegger has been pushing to set execution dates after California's new protocol for lethal injection became effective Aug. 30.

    Brown has exhausted all of his court appeals. His case is now before the governor for either a reprieve, which would delay his execution, or a grant of clemency, which would vacate his death sentence.

    "Any current clemency process appears to be a 'pro forma charade,' " Norman said in her news release.

    Riverside County Chief Assistant District Attorney Bill Mitchell said Tuesday that Riverside County has seven days to respond to Norman's request, which is now before Schwarzenegger.

    Mitchell did not seem impressed. "We are sure he will give it all the respect and attention it deserves," Mitchell said after reviewing Norman's request.

    Norman did not return phone calls.

    Norman said that the new lethal injection protocol still has not been reviewed by state and federal court judges whose courts have halted executions in California. The last execution in the state was in 2006.

    http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/s...9.2be335c.html

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    September 21, 2010

    Calif seeks return of executions after 4-year hold

    SAN JOSE -- Attorney General Jerry Brown's deputies are seeking permission for the state to resume executing death row prisoners as early as next week.

    State lawyers are scheduled to appear in federal court in San Jose Tuesday to ask a judge to allow the scheduled execution of Albert Greenwood Brown.

    Brown is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 29 for the for the Riverside County rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl abducted on her way home from school in 1980.

    U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose halted executions in California in 2006 and ordered prison officials to improve the procedures for administering lethal injections.

    Lawyers for some of the 702 inmates on death row at San Quentin State Prison are seeking an extension of the execution moratorium Fogel imposed.

    http://www.modbee.com/2010/09/21/134...xecutions.html

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    September 21, 2010

    Refurbished death chamber ready for execution

    SAN QUENTIN, Calif. -- Officials at San Quentin State Prison say the state's recently refurbished death chamber will be ready for a planned execution next week if a federal judge lifts the five-year moratorium on capital punishment in California.

    Prison spokesman Lt. Sam Robinson said Tuesday that the two-year-old lethal injection facility is fully prepared to carry out the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown on Sept. 29.

    Brown was convicted of the 1980 rape and murder of a 15-year-old Riverside County girl.

    The refurbished 11-room facility includes separate eyewitness areas for the victim's and inmate's families, and a holding cell with a phone and flat-screen television.

    The California Attorney General's Office is scheduled to ask a federal judge on Tuesday to lift the moratorium.

    http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...rticle-7680998

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    September 24, 2010

    Judge may allow execution to go forward

    A federal judge today refused to block the scheduled execution next week of a condemned Riverside County killer, but put a wrinkle in his ruling that may mean the inmate can only be put to death with a fatal dose of one anesthetic drug and not the three-drug procedure recently adopted by California prison officials.

    U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel gave Albert Greenwood Brown, scheduled to be executed next Wednesday, until Saturday evening to request an execution with a single drug, a departure from California's preferred and planned method of administering lethal injection. If he does so and California officials refuse to comply with that restriction, Fogel said he will block the planned execution of Brown, on death row since 1982 for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl.

    In an 11-page order, Fogel concluded that he does not have the legal authority to block Brown's Sept. 29 execution unless state officials fail to take steps that he believes address concerns that the lethal injection method will not cause a cruel and inhumane death. The judge indicated that a fatal dose of sodium thiopental may avoid the chief worry in lethal injection executions: that the two drug administered later would mask that face that an inmate experiences agonizing pain before being declared dead.

    Fogel noted that nine single-drug executions have been carried out in Ohio and Washington without any "apparent difficulty." In what is a high-stakes decision, if Brown does not opt to be executed with the single drug, the judge did find that California can proceed with the execution under its usual three-drug procedure.

    Attorney General Jerry Brown office and Brown's lawyers were not immediately available for comment on the next step.

    The judge put a hold on executions in California in early 2006 after death row inmate Michael Morales sued, arguing that California's lethal injection procedures are so flawed they expose death row inmates to the prospect of a death that violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    After conducting an exhaustive evidentiary hearing, Fogel found that the state's method was flawed for a variety of reasons, ranging from poor training of the execution team to an antiquated death chamber at San Quentin. He ordered the state to devise improvements that would rectify the problems, and the state responded with a new three-drug regimen that went into effect in August.

    While Fogel has not had an opportunity to review those new procedures, or tour San Quentin's new death chamber, prosecutors nevertheless began pushing to get executions moving forward after a nearly five-year hiatus. Brown would be the first inmate executed in California since January 2006.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_16165748

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    September 25, 2010

    Judge clears way for California's first execution since 2006

    A judge ruled that if Albert Greenwood Brown chooses a single injection and is refused, his execution will be stayed.

    If it proceeds, Albert Greenwood Brown's execution will be 1st since lethal injection review

    Federal judge gives Brown choice between single injection or 3-drug injection

    Brown was sentenced to death in 1982 for rape, murder of 15-year-old Susan Jordan

    Execution will be 1st in lethal injection chamber designed to meet new regulations

    A federal judge on Friday denied a stay of execution for a California man who raped and murdered a 15-year-old in 1981, but gave Albert Greenwood Brown a choice of whether to die by single injection or the state's recently revised three-drug method.

    If the execution proceeds as scheduled on Wednesday, Brown could become the 1st person to be executed in California since 2006, when legal challenges arose prompting the state to revise its lethal injection procedure.

    He could also become the 1st inmate to be put to death in California's new lethal injection chamber, which was modified to meet requirements to come out of the review.

    If, however, Brown elects to be executed by a single injection of sodium thiopental and the state refuses, a stay of his execution will be ordered, U.S. District Judge Jerry Fogel wrote in a decision issued today.

    Fogel noted that present litigation had nothing to do with "the wisdom or morality of the death penalty" but rather, the legal issue of whether the 56-year-old was entitled to a stay of execution.

    "The passions that surround these issues are deep and entirely understandable, but they have little to do with the limited legal question presented here," he wrote.

    "The court is painfully aware that however it decides a case of this nature, there will be many who disagree profoundly with its decision. The moral and political debate about capital punishment will continue, as it should."

    Brown was sentenced to death in 1982 for the rape and murder of Susan Jordan, who was walking to Arlington High School in Riverside when Brown pulled her into an orange grove, according to court documents.

    He raped and strangled her with her own shoelace and took her school identification cards and books. Later that evening, he looked up her family in the phone book and called their home, the documents state.

    "Hello, Mrs. Jordan, Susie isn't home from school yet, is she?" court documents quoted him as saying. "You will never see your daughter again. You can find her body on the corner of Victoria and Gibson.

    "He also placed a call to police directing them to her body. During the investigation, 2 witnesses identified Brown as being near the scene of the crime. Police also found Susan's school books and newspaper articles about her death in Brown's home, and clothing with semen stains in Brown's work locker.

    During the penalty phase of Brown's trial, his lawyer presented psychiatric evidence suggesting that he had emotional problems, including sexual maladjustment and dysfunction and claimed he was remorseful.

    The jury deliberated for 3 hours before returning a death verdict, according to an opinion issued September 19 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Brown had exhausted all his state and federal appeals and habeas corpus issues, according to the Riverside District Attorney's Office, when he petitioned the court last week to join the case that led to an overhaul of the state's execution procedures, which took effect August 29.

    Among the changes, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: the revised 3-drug method, which includes new directives on how to prepare and administer the mixture; a new selection process and training program for members of the "lethal injection team," which consists of groups including the security sub-team, the intravenous sub-team and the infusion sub-team.

    The state also built a new execution facility at San Quentin Prison, home of California's male death row, with a bigger death chamber and observation room that separates guests of the condemned inmate from witnesses related to the victim.

    The passions that surround [death penalty] issues are deep and entirely understandable, but they have little to do with the limited legal question presented here.

    Brown argued that, until the court had an opportunity to conduct a full review of the regulations, no executions should proceed, according to Fogel's opinion.

    Lawyers for the state argued that the defense failed to show the new regulations created "a demonstrated risk of severe pain," as required by the most recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to test lethal injection protocol, Baze v. Rees.

    They also argued that the regulations had come about after years of review and public hearings, and in direct response to issues raised by the Supreme Court, and expressed concerns over deviating from them.

    Fogel wrote that allowing the condemned inmate to choose which injection protocol to use would address that concern.

    "Allowing a condemned inmate to make such a choice is consistent with Ninth Circuit authority in cases arising both in California and elsewhere," he wrote.

    California's last execution was on January 17, 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen was put to death for three counts of 1st-degree murder with special circumstances. From behind bars, he had helped orchestrate a deadly armed robbery at a convenience store.

    (Source: CNN)

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    September 28, 2010

    Judge halts execution of rapist-murderer

    A federal judge Tuesday ordered a halt to the execution of convicted rapist and murderer Albert Greenwood Brown, saying there was "no way" the court could conduct a proper review of new lethal injection procedures before the inmate was scheduled to die Thursday.

    U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel reversed a decision he handed down Friday that the execution could go forward if the state gave Brown the option of dying by a single-injection method used in other states, rather than the three-drug cocktail prescribed by California's new regulations.

    A federal appeals court returned the case to Fogel late Monday, saying he had "erred" in offering Brown an execution method unauthorized in this state.

    In his Tuesday night ruling, Fogel said Brown had raised serious questions about whether the state had addressed all problems with the former execution protocols Fogel found to be flawed in a 2006 ruling.

    He also noted that the state has so little of a key drug needed for lethal injections — and what it has expires Friday — that no further death sentences could be carried out this year after Brown's. But he said that supply issue was "hardly a reason to forgo proper examination" of the new procedures, which the judge expects to vet by the end of the year. Brown is one of 708 prisoners on California's death row, and his execution would have been the first in California in nearly five years.

    A spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, Christine Gasparac, said that Fogel's ruling would be appealed and that her office would be representing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 11th-hour challenge.

    Brown's execution had been set for 9 p.m. Thursday, just three hours before the state's only supply of sodium thiopental expires. Fresh supplies are unavailable until next year.

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked Fogel late Monday to reconsider his refusal to stay the execution and examine whether the state's new lethal injection procedures comport with conditions set down by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling two years ago.

    Brown's lawyers said in court filings that they couldn't answer the complex questions posed by the appeals court "in such a compressed time frame" and asked for delay of the execution. Calling the state's drug shelf-life problem a "fiasco" of its own making, the prisoner's pleading said "so much for the solemn dignity and thoughtful consideration deserved by Mr. Brown and his family, the victim's family and the courts."

    In testimony in Fogel's San Jose courtroom in 2006, witnesses contended that some of the 11 inmates executed by lethal injection in California in recent years may not have been fully anesthetized by the first of the injections, a powerful barbiturate, before the other two drugs, which induce significant pain, were given.

    Brown's attorneys told Fogel that the lethal injection procedures adopted in late July were "almost a rubber stamp" of the previous practices. They also faulted the regulations for training execution team members without having them actually handle the drugs involved.

    The state never undertook a serious reform of the execution procedures, Brown's lawyers said, describing the revision adopted in late July as "a ruse, conducted grudgingly and in the shadows of fraud, incompetence and deceit."

    David A. Senior, one of Brown's attorneys, said Fogel's decision seemed like "the logical disposition of the case" and one that would prevent capital punishment from becoming a political football in the gubernatorial race.

    Lawyers with the attorney general's office argued that the procedures have been changed considerably, with a mandatory "consciousness check" to be conducted after the sodium thiopental is injected to ensure that the inmate won't feel the consequences of the second two drugs.

    The state accused Brown of seeking to delay and avoid his execution, rather than improve the methods by which it would be conducted. The state's brief also cautioned Fogel against inserting the courts in matters of government responsibility, saying that having judges decide what method of execution is best "would embroil the courts in ongoing scientific controversies beyond their expertise."

    Tom Hunter, a juror in Brown's 1982 trial in the aggravated murder of a 15-year-old Riverside girl, said he was disappointed with Fogel's move to halt the execution.

    "I cannot imagine the anguish the victim's family must be going through knowing that justice was this close," he said.

    (Source: The Associated Press)

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