Ky. high court throws out death sentence
LOUISVILLE (AP) – A Kentucky inmate convicted of a 2001 murder in Columbia cannot face the death penalty when he is re-sentenced for beating and stabbing a woman to death during a robbery because a jury gave him life during his first trial, the state’s high court ruled Thursday.
Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson wrote that 29-year-old Phillip L. Brown was “improperly subjected to the death penalty’ during a retrial in the 2001 slaying of Sherry Bland. Jurors were instructed to determine if prosecutors proved Brown deserved the death penalty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Brown was convicted of murder in Adair County in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. That conviction was overturned and the trial moved to Warren County. At the second trial in 2006, a jury handed down a death sentence.
Handing down a death sentence in a retrial violated Brown’s constitutional rights because of the jury’s finding in the first trial, Abramson wrote.
“In sum, because the jury who first heard Brown’s case found that the death penalty was not appropriate, Brown should not have been subjected to the death penalty at his retrial,’’ Abramson wrote. “Otherwise, however, Brown’s trial, though flawed in minor ways, was fundamentally fair.’’
The decision overturns two Kentucky Supreme Court rulings allowing jurors to hand down a death sentence at a retrial when one wasn’t given during an initial trial. Brown’s case now moves back to Warren County for re-sentencing on convictions for murder, burglary and robbery.
Justice Will T. Scott dissented from the opinion, saying the high court wasn’t wrong in previous rulings allowing a death sentence at a retrial.
Brown’s public defender, Emily Rhorer, described herself as pleased with the decision that keeps Brown from being sentenced to death again.
Shelley Catherine Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, said the decision may be appealed, either in a rehearing or before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prosecutors relied on witnesses who said Brown confessed to killing Bland and DNA evidence that showed Brown and Bland as possible contributors of the evidence.
Police say Bland was stabbed with a steak knife, then beaten with a tire iron on Jan. 11, 2001, with the killer taking a 27-inch color television from her home. Brown was arrested several days later after a police officer who had pulled Brown over for a traffic stop noticed cuts and scratches on Brown’s arm. The officer also noticed a tattoo of a demonic hand with its fingers clutching the earth and its middle finger raised “in a familiar gesture of contempt.’”
Abramson rejected several other challenges by Brown, including allowing a photo of the tattoo to be shown to the jury. Abramson found that jurors should not have been shown the tattoo photo, but that the mistake was harmless.
By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press Writer
