POSSIBLE INNOCENCE: Originally Sentenced to Death, Brothers May Now Be Cleared in North Carolina

UPDATE: Both defen­dants freed after judge over­turns con­vic­tions. EARLIER: Henry McCollum (l.) and Leon Brown (r.), two broth­ers who were con­vict­ed of mur­der and sen­tenced to death in 1984, may soon be freed because of evi­dence uncov­ered by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. McCollum was 19 and Brown was 15 when they con­fessed to the rape and mur­der of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Both men are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled — McCollum has an IQ in the 60s and Brown has scored as low as 49 on IQ tests. McCollum and Brown have main­tained their inno­cence since their tri­al, say­ing they were unaware they were sign­ing a con­fes­sion. ​“I’d nev­er been under such pres­sure, peo­ple yelling and scream­ing at me,” McCollum said of his inter­ro­ga­tion. ​“I was scared, and was just try­ing to get out of that police sta­tion and go home.” In 2010, Brown, who is now serv­ing a life sen­tence for rape after his mur­der con­vic­tion was thrown out, con­tact­ed the Innocence Commission about his case. The Commission found DNA evi­dence near the crime scene belong­ing to anoth­er man, Roscoe Artis, who was sen­tenced to death for a crime sim­i­lar to the one for which McCollum and Brown were sen­tenced to death. (Artis’ sen­tence was lat­er reduced to life.) On September 2, defense attor­neys for Brown and McCollum will present the evi­dence and ask a Robeson County judge to free both men. Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt, who is not oppos­ing the request, said, ​“The whole case rests on the con­fes­sions, and the DNA evi­dence threw those con­fes­sions under the bus.”

(J. Neff, ​“New DNA evi­dence could free two men in noto­ri­ous Robeson County case,” News and Observer, August 30, 2014). Read Press Release from Defense Attorneys. See Innocence and Intellectual Disability.

Statement of Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center,
on the Exoneration of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown

“The con­vic­tion and sen­tenc­ing to death of two black teenagers with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties (men­tal retar­da­tion), based almost entire­ly on shaky con­fes­sions obtained under extreme duress, sounds like a case from anoth­er era. But these men — Henry McCollum and Leon Brown — were freed in North Carolina today. It would be naïve to assume there are no more such cas­es among the thou­sands of inmates who remain on death row, or that sim­i­lar mis­takes weren’t made among the near­ly 1,400 peo­ple who have been executed.

“McCollum and Brown lost 30 years of their lives due to this injus­tice. If they had been exe­cut­ed as planned, the price would have been infi­nite­ly high­er. Taking the death penal­ty off the table would at least guar­an­tee that inno­cent peo­ple will not be executed.”

– Richard Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center

September 2, 2014

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