Sherman Brown (pic­tured), a man who was sen­tenced to death in Virginia in 1970 for the mur­der of a 4‑year-old boy, has filed a writ of actu­al inno­cence with the Virginia Supreme Court say­ing that DNA test­ing on recent­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence clears him of the crime. Brown’s peti­tion states: ​“Recent DNA test­ing demon­strates by clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence what I have main­tained for over 45 years: that I am inno­cent of this crime. The evi­dence against me at tri­al was deeply flawed.” 

Brown was con­vict­ed of a 1969 crime in which a woman was knocked uncon­scious, stabbed, and pos­si­bly raped and her 4‑year-old son was killed. The woman — who is White — iden­ti­fied Brown — who is Black — as her attack­er, and inves­ti­ga­tors pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny claim­ing that a fiber and hair analy­sis they had con­duct­ed implicated Brown. 

An all-White jury con­vict­ed Brown and sen­tenced him to death. His death sen­tence was reduced to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penal­ty in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia.

Several recent devel­op­ments have called Brown’s con­vic­tion into ques­tion. The fiber and hair evi­dence used in Brown’s tri­al was among the flawed foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny recent­ly iden­ti­fied by the FBI as lack­ing sci­en­tif­ic valid­i­ty. In 2015, the University of Virginia Innocence Project dis­cov­ered a slide that con­tains a vagi­nal swab that was tak­en from the vic­tim at the time of the crime. DNA test­ing exclud­ed Brown as the source of a male DNA pro­file found in the spec­i­men and, with 98% cer­tain­ty, ruled out the wom­an’s hus­band. This, Brown says, shows the DNA ​“came from an uniden­ti­fied third man and con­sti­tutes pow­er­ful evi­dence of [his] innocence.” 

The Virginia Supreme Court has stayed Brown’s peti­tion to per­mit addi­tion­al test­ing to con­clu­sive­ly deter­mine whether the male DNA could have come from the vic­tim’s hus­band. If Brown is exon­er­at­ed, he would be the sec­ond Virginia pris­on­er exon­er­at­ed after hav­ing been sen­tenced to death.

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Sources

J. Jouvenal, After 46 years in prison, man argues DNA evi­dence proves he is inno­cent of 4‑year-old’s mur­der, The Washington Post, October 22, 2016; F. Green, Lawyers say DNA test­ing proves inno­cence of man in prison for more than 46 years for killing of 4‑year-old Va. boy, Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 18, 2016; Sherman Brown’s 46-Year-Old Case Goes Back to Court, The Innocence Project, October 19, 2016.

See Innocence.