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Thread: Sherwood Dwayne Brown - Mississippi

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    Sherwood Dwayne Brown - Mississippi




    Facts of the Crime:

    Was sentenced to die by lethal injection in 1995 after being convicted on two counts of murder and one count of capital murder for the January 7, 1993 slayings of Betty Boyd, 82, her daughter-in-law, Verline Boyd, 49, and Evangelo Charmain Boyd, 13, the daughter of Verline Boyd and Betty Boyd's granddaughter. The three were found hacked to death in Betty Boyd's home south of Eudora.

  2. #2
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Brown's case was remanded to the trial court on an Atkins claim back in 2004.

    http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ms-suprem...t/1149300.html

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    Mississippi death row inmate wins shot at DNA testing to prove no sexual assault

    For 17 years, Sherwood Brown has claimed it was not he but an accomplice who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl.

    Prosecutors used that evidence to seek a death sentence at Brown's 1995 trial in DeSoto County.

    On Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously decided to give Brown his chance to prove it.

    The justices gave Brown 30 days to file a motion in DeSoto County Circuit Court and for that court to determine if any biological evidence exists. If the evidence exists, the Supreme Court says the judge will order DNA testing.

    Brown was convicted in the 1993 deaths of Betty Boyd, 82, and her daughter-in-law, Verline Boyd, 49. He also was convicted in the killing of Evangelo Charmain Boyd, 13, the daughter of Verline and granddaughter of Betty.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...-Testing-Brown
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    Brown pursues mental disability argument

    JACKSON (AP) -- Mississippi inmate Sherwood Brown is seeking to have his death sentence overturned because he is mentally disabled.

    A DeSoto County judged ruled against Brown in 2013. Brown appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Oct. 6 in Jackson.

    Brown argues there was sufficient evidence to support his contention he is mentally disabled but the trial judge chose to ignore them. Brown said the evidence showed he had an IQ score that meets the requirements for a diagnosis of mental disability, has multiple significant adaptive functioning deficits and his mental disability had onset before age 18.

    The attorney general's office countered the trial court reached the correct conclusion and Brown didn't prove mental disability.

    Brown, now 46, was sentenced to death in 1995 after being convicted on two counts of murder and one count of capital murder.

    Authorities said Betty Boyd, 82, her daughter-in-law, Verline Boyd, 49, and Evangelo Charmain Boyd, 13, the daughter of Verline Boyd and Betty Boyd's granddaughter were found hacked to death in Betty Boyd's home south of Eudora on Jan. 7, 1993.

    The U.S. Supreme Court denied Brown's appeal of his death penalty sentence in 1997, but in 2002 the high court ruled in a Virginia case that it's illegal to execute people who are mentally disabled. The court said it would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute anyone with a combined IQ of 75 or lower.

    IQ is intelligence quotient. An IQ of 100 is said to represent normal intelligence. An IQ lower than 75 is said to reflect mental disability. The Supreme Court was quite specific. It said that an IQ of 76 would not grant criminals protection from execution.

    At the time of Brown's trial, Dr. Marcia Little, a clinical psychologist, testified that Brown had borderline intelligence, between being mildly disabled and the level of intelligence of the general population.

    Prosecutors said Little was wrong.

    http://www.cdispatch.com/news/articl...#ixzz3CkNtpj68

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    Miss. Supreme Court is asked to overturn inmate's death sentence, based on his mental ability

    By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
    The Associated Press

    JACKSON, Mississippi — A defense attorney on Monday asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to overturn the death penalty of Sherwood Brown, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for the slayings of two women and a teenage girl in DeSoto County.

    "It's clear that he's mildly mentally retarded," Brown's attorney, John R. Lane, told justices during oral arguments.

    The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred states from executing mentally disabled inmates.

    Lane said Brown scored 75 on an IQ test. A score of 70 is widely accepted as a marker of mental disability, but medical professionals say people scoring as high as 75 can be considered intellectually disabled because of the test's margin of error.

    A special assistant state attorney general, Jason L. Davis, argued that Mississippi justices should uphold Brown's death sentence. Davis said a DeSoto County circuit judge made the proper ruling in 2013 by saying Brown's attorneys failed to prove the inmate has a longstanding mental disability.

    Brown, now 46, was sentenced to death after being convicted on two counts of murder and one count of capital murder.

    Authorities said Betty Boyd, 82, her daughter-in-law, Verline Boyd, 49, and Evangelo Charmain Boyd, 13, the daughter of Verline Boyd, were found hacked to death in Betty Boyd's home south of Eudora on Jan. 7, 1993.

    The U.S. Supreme Court denied Brown's appeal of his death penalty sentence in 1997. The 2002 ruling led the way for defense attorneys in cases such as Brown's to try to have inmates' death sentences overturned, based on their mental capacity.

    Lane argued that testimony during Brown's trial showed Brown had held 16 or 17 jobs in 10 years, some of which were jobs driving delivery trucks. The attorney said people with mild mental disabilities are often able to hold jobs and do other activities such as driving or playing sports. To support his contention that Brown is mentally disabled, Lane cited Brown's early academic record of failing first grade and earning low grades at other points in elementary school.

    "His environment before he was in prison was horrific and just unstructured," Lane said.

    Davis said the fact that Brown several jobs in a decade does not mean Brown is mentally disabled.

    "Mr. Brown obviously had an anger issue," Davis said. "He got into it with management."

    http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/sto...-Brown-Appeal/

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    Mississippi Supreme Court reaches decision on death row inmate’s appeal

    The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s decision to sentence a DeSoto County man to death for the 1993 murders of 82-year-old Betty Boyd, her 48-year-old daughter Verline, and Verline’s 13-year-old daughter Evangelo.

    Sherwood Brown appealed the lower court’s decision, continuing his argument that he was mentally retarded and therefore exempt from execution.

    He claimed the court applied an incorrect legal standard, the court’s findings of fact were clearly erroneous, and the trial court erred in admitting certain expert testimony.

    Brown had the burden of proof to convince the court of his claims, but the Supreme Court determined the trial court proceeded correctly.

    http://wreg.com/2015/03/26/mississip...nmates-appeal/
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    On October 10, 2017, oral argument will be heard in Sherwood's case before the Mississippi Supreme Court.

    https://courts.ms.gov/appellate_cour...cs52017-SD.pdf

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    Death row inmate's triple killing conviction overturned

    By Therese Apel
    The Clarion-Ledger

    The conviction of a man on death row accused of a triple homicide in 1993 has been overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court.

    Sherwood Brown is accused in the brutal killings of a 13-year-old DeSoto County girl, with her mother and grandmother.

    The reasoning for vacating the sentence was based on exculpatory DNA testing results and false forensic testimony, according to the court's ruling. The case has been remanded to the circuit court of DeSoto County for a new trial, the Supreme Court's website states.

    "The relief afforded herein is extraordinary and extremely rare in the context of a petition for leave to pursue post-conviction collateral relief, and we limit the relief we today grant to the facts of the above-styled case," the en banc order reads.

    2015: State Supreme Court affirms death penalty

    Brown got the death penalty for killing 13-year-old Evangela Boyd, because jurors found that he killed her in 1995 while committing felony child abuse.

    He got life sentences for the deaths of the child’s mother, Verline Boyd, 48, and her 82-year-old grandmother, Betty Boyd, also killed in Betty Boyd’s home south of Eudora on Jan. 7, 1993.

    Court records from the time
    stated the bodies were found by a five-year-old family member, who alerted her school bus driver. The home was said to be "totally ransacked," and Evangela's naked body was found in the laundry room.

    Verline Boyd was apparently just getting home from work, as her body was found by the door with her jacket on and keys in hand.

    All three victims were described by the medical examiner as having died of "multiple chop wounds to the head." He testified that something like a machete, an axe, a kizer blade," or a similar type weapon with significant weight and a sharp edge had been used.

    Shoe prints led detectives down the road to where Brown, then 24, was staying with his parents.

    A friend of Brown's testified that Brown admitted to sexual contact with Evangela, and that when she fought back, he hit her with "something he described as a joe blade." When she tried to leave, court documents say the witness told the court that he grabbed "whatever he grabbed and just stopped her, cut her, hatchet or whatever, he stopped her."

    Brown was arrested in Memphis at his aunt's home four days after the homicides occurred, and his shoes, coat, two guns and an axe were taken for evidence. He told police that on the night of the killings, he had done some drugs and gone to bed early.

    Brown's attorney had argued that he was not mentally fit to be executed. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred states from executing mentally disabled inmates.

    Brown claimed it was someone else who sexually assaulted Evangela for 17 years until in 2012 the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously decided to give Brown his chance to prove it.

    Brown was given 30 days to file a motion in DeSoto County Circuit Court and for that court to determine whether any biological evidence exists.

    Brown is said by his attorney to have scored 75 on an IQ test. A score of 70 is widely accepted as a marker of mental disability, but medical professionals say people scoring as high as 75 can be considered intellectually disabled because of the test’s margin of error.

    http://www.clarionledger.com/story/n...ned/803885001/
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