After 46 years, DNA evidence proves Virginia inmate’s innocence, attorneys say

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

After 46 years, DNA evidence proves Virginia inmate’s innocence, attorneys say

When Sherman Brown was convicted and imprisoned in the brutal murder of a 4-year-old Virginia boy in 1970.



If Sherman Brown, 69, is exonerated, he would be among the longest-serving
prisoners to be cleared of a crime in the history of Virginia and the United States.
(Department of Corrections)

By Justin Jouvenal
The Washington Post

Sat., Oct. 22, 2016

When Sherman Brown was convicted and imprisoned in the brutal killing of a 4-year-old Virginia boy, the Vietnam War was still raging and Watergate was just a hotel, not a scandal.

Then 22 years old, he maintained his innocence at the time and as each decade faded into the next. Now, after nearly a half-century behind bars, Brown is petitioning Virginia’s Supreme Court, saying DNA collected from newly recovered evidence indicates that he could not have committed the murder.

Justices now will have to weigh whether that genetic evidence is strong enough to warrant overturning his 1970 conviction in Albemarle County, Va.

If Brown, 69, is exonerated, he would be among the longest-serving prisoners to be cleared of a crime in the history of Virginia and the United States. It would be an extraordinary turnabout for a man who was initially sentenced to death before the sentence was reduced to life.

Read more: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/10/22/after-46-years-dna-evidence-proves-virginia-inmates-innocence-attorneys-say.html

[monmouth4]

1. Dear lord, what we do to each other is so disgraceful. I hope this man finds some peace. n/t

[targetpractice]

8. Perfectly said.

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. The thing that always gets me in these cases

is that in their zeal to catch and convict the wrong guy, the real perpetrator walked free. I hope this man is released and given a settlement to live on.

[JI7]

6. in many of these cases i'm sure some consider it a victory that any black guy was locked up

[mpcamb]

21. " The thing that always gets me in these cases" is how little shame prosecutors show.

They took 5/7 of this guy's life away; his entire adulthood.
How do they sleep at night?

[tblue37]

23. Convictions accelerate a prosecutors career, and convicting black men is especially smiled upon.

And closing high profile homicide cases makes cops and whole PDs look good.

Guilt or innocence isn't considered relevant.

[Little Star]

3. Jesus! We can't doetter than this? Makes me sick.

[SamKnause]

4. U.S. citizens should be terrified of our judicial and penal system.

[InkAddict]

7. Who said we're not? eom

[treestar]

20. Now with the DNA technology

we don't have to be. That wasn't there at his trial.

But yes, it is not perfect. That's why there should be no death penalty.

[jaysunb]

9. As a black Vietnam vet, this post touched me to my core.

I too had also been back in the world only a couple years when this happened and reading this brought back a flood of memories from that period of time in my life and in America.
The war was raging, people ( mostly kids ) were protesting in the streets, inner cities were on fire, leaders were being assassinated, J. Edgar Hoover and the Nixon administration were fighting a war against the citizens under the guise of restoring "law and order" and guys like Sherman Brown were being railroaded to death row by the dozens.

Reading this, I thought of how Brown must have seen his young world continue to explode around him. I don't know what his prior life before the military was, or what his experience in Nam may have been, and especially, what he may have experienced when he returned to the world. I wondered what his mental state may have been, when he did. Was he like many of us that returned from fighting a war abroad to another war at this place we'd prayed to get back to.

And then...44 years behind bars.

I wonder how many times during those years did he think of the euphoria he felt when he stepped on American soil and in the cold lonely jail cell did he recall all the dreams and plans he had made for himself when he GOT BACK TO THE WORLD !! Although he has spent years of man hours trying to exonerate himself, he STILL had to deal with everyday prison life and it's warlike level of anxiety. He had to wait the outcome of every court decision every day and night. I imagine him thinking about that girl he used to write and may or may not have hooked up with when he got BACK TO THE WORLD.

I wondered about his family. Knowing three generations have been born during his absence and the many that have died...particularly those that knew him best. Those that saw him off to war and those that welcomed him home, to another. The friends and family that wrote him and welcomed him home, but, came to believe that he may have committed a horrible crime and abandoned him. All that shit we talked in country about HOME. All those plans.....

Just let me get the fuck outta here and I'll show you.


I wonder what the future holds for my brother and how much time he'll have to GET BACK TO THE WORLD !! and what will he find when he gets here.

[canetoad]

10. Powerful post

Thank you.

[prayin4rain]

11. It's so awful. nt

[Festivito]

13. Well said. Well done.

How many friends and relatives might have died unsure of his complicity. Much cannot be restored.

I find it maddening. I find your post to be very level headed. Thank you.

[Old Vet]

17. Like you jaysunb. I remember arriving back to the states on 11-29-72.............

Its so hard to tell people what you just did so eloquently, My heart breaks for this man. After serving this country honorably during war he returned to another war, One that you might agree he never had a chance. Whats depressing, Even though science says hes innocent he will sit in prison and will be probably offered release IF he agrees not to sue. I can only hope this man finds some justice sooner then later. BTW Welcome Home brother( And I happen to be white)

[secondwind]

14. Bob Riley is in a LA jail on his third decade behind bars, simply because he mailed some LSD to a

friend. He was sentenced to LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE.

We CAN and SHOULD do better than this

[bulloney]

15. DNA evidence has proven that our legal and judicial systems are a joke.

They are not a forum for proving innocence or guilt; justice or injustice; right or wrong. Our legal and judicial systems are a playpen for people who can afford the slickest talking attorney or team of attorneys who can do the best job of manipulating the judge, jury and media.

Cases like Mr. Brown's where he is released after wasting decades of his life in prison are becoming increasingly common.

[Palladini]

16. LawSuit!

I see one hell of Big Law Suit here, if he is not the perp responsible for those heinous acts. I would hope he gets about 10 million per of being locked up.

[Old Vet]

18. Usually they offer a settlement of release if he agrees to not sue. Or sit in prison........

Until there's a new trial. Welcome to DU btw.

[Igel]

22. Probably not.

Unless there's some evidence that procedures weren't followed.

About the only procedure that wasn't obviously followed was not pursuing the sperm sample that this story's based on. He wasn't charged with rape; had that been introduced, perhaps he would have been. Then again, perhaps the report that the pathology lab produced would have shown it couldn't have been him. No word as to why that wasn't followed up on, except perhaps the woman didn't want to deal with it.

At the time, if raped the woman would have had a fairly difficult time at trial. If it wasn't Brown's sperm, then it could call into question her fidelity to her husband. (Note that even now the assumption that Brown's legal team, not Brown himself, is making is that if there was sperm that wasn't her husband's or Brown's it means Brown couldn't have been the killer. This seems like a reasonable claim but unless the woman's around to testify it's going to always remain an open question.)


More problematic is just how fallible human memory is. (It's a fundamental attribution error to assume every instance of bad identification is because of racism. Memory's fallible. Moreover, cross-race facial recognition is significantly less reliable than intra-racial face recognition. That we also assume is due to racism, but turns out that our assumptions are flawed because the real state of affairs is complicated and we like easy, quick, uncomplicated answers.)

[jaysunb]

26. There's lots of bullshit going on here....

Here's some further facts in the case.

The victim identified Brown, but the victim said that she could not recall what happened after she was struck unconscious—and initially misidentified Brown’s father as the perpetrator—making her identification unreliable.

At trial, the prosecution’s case relied on the testimony from an FBI analyst who said that hairs on a sweatshirt, that belonged to Brown’s brother-in-law, “matched” Brown’s hair, and that this was important because fibers on this sweatshirt were found to have “matched” fibers from the victim’s robe and vice-versa. Brown’s conviction was based in large part on this flawed forensic evidence.

Evidence strongly points to the female victim being raped. Testing of physical evidence collected in connection with the crime has also excluded Brown and is powerful evidence that he did not commit these crimes. DNA testing also shows with more than 98% certainty that the victim’s husband is excluded as well. Steps are now being taken to conclusively exclude the victim’s husband.


A decent defense attorney would have seen through this very obvious deception.

[roamer65]

19. This is why the death penalty needs to be abolished, or EXTREMELY restricted.

Illinois ended it because they simply didn't not want to run the risk of executing innocent people.

Thank God Virginia reduced the sentence.

[heaven05]

25. American justice

shameful how with brown skin you are guilty until proven innocent and with all others, especially the privileged ones, it's the exact opposite. And it has ALWAYS worked that way in this country. North, South East, West.