Brown v. Com.
| Decision Date | 31 August 1982 |
| Citation | 639 S.W.2d 758 |
| Parties | James H. BROWN, III, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
The appellant, James H. (Jim) Brown, III, and his brother, Mark Brown, were jointly indicted for the murder of Bryant Dudley. Cf. KRS 507.020. In a separate trial Mark was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. His conviction was affirmed by this court in Brown v. Commonwealth, Ky., 555 S.W.2d 252 (1977). That opinion will serve as a sufficient background for understanding this case without a detailed account of the evidence in this opinion.
Jim Brown's separate trial also resulted in a verdict of guilty and a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, which gives rise to this belated appeal.
With two major differences the evidence in Jim's trial was much the same as it was in Mark's. Mark was done in by the testimony of Robert Collins, who said that Mark had confided in him and admitted that he and Jim had killed Dudley. This evidence, of course, was not admissible against Jim. In Jim's trial, on the other hand, there was expert evidence that blood found on Jim's boots was not his blood but could have been Dudley's. That evidence was not introduced in Mark's trial.
To summarize the events, it will be recalled that Mark strongly suspected that Dudley had stolen a quantity of marijuana from his apartment in Maysville, and was threatening to shoot him. On the night of Monday, May 17, 1976, Jim, Mark and Robert Collins went riding in Jim's automobile and picked Dudley up. As they continued riding around with Jim driving, Mark displayed a .45-caliber pistol and, pointing it in the "general direction" of Dudley, questioned him with regard to the theft of drugs from Mark's apartment. Collins became apprehensive and asked that he be taken back to his car, which was done. When Collins parted company with them, Mark, Jim and Dudley were still together. On the next night, Tuesday, May 18, 1976, Jim and Mark were in Jim's car on 4th Street in Maysville and indicated to Chan Warner and Earl Black that they were looking for Dudley. Shortly thereafter they found him at the home of his girl friend, Anna Corde, and he left with them in Jim's car. Later on, between 11:30 and midnight, four boys came to Mark's apartment but stayed only a few minutes because the Browns were planning to go to Lexington. Dudley was in the kitchen with Mark "snorting something," and appeared to be "high." Jim, on the other hand, was sitting on a chair in the living room and appeared to be normal. So far as we know from the evidence, this was the last time anyone other than Jim and Mark Brown saw Dudley alive.
At 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning (Wednesday, May 19, 1976) Jim and Mark arrived at the apartment of several friends in Lexington, Kentucky, about 65 miles from Maysville, and went to bed on a couch. Wednesday was Jim's usual off-day from work, and he had made similar visits on several previous occasions, usually arriving, however, on Tuesday evening. Mark had not accompanied him before. Later on during this particular day, after the Brown boys had arisen they played cards and listened to records with some of their hosts, after which Mark cleaned out Jim's car and disposed of some trash. During this activity Mark fired a shotgun which he or Jim, or both, had in the automobile, explaining afterward that he had been testing a defective safety mechanism. Sometime in the middle of the day, around noon or 1:00 P.M., Jim, Mark and a young man named Hutchison went over to Hutchison's nearby apartment and Jim asked Hutchison if he wanted to buy a pair of boots. Hutchison said no, but that he had an old pair he would trade for them. Jim thereupon traded his boots for the old boots, and also traded the shirt he was wearing for one of Hutchison's shirts. According to Hutchison, Jim gave no explanation for wanting to make these exchanges. Later, however, after Hutchison began to hear rumors (after discovery of the murder, presumably) he took a good look at the boots, which he had not worn, and discovered a stain or stains on them. Eventually, after being questioned by investigative officers, Hutchison turned the boots over to a detective. A laboratory examination disclosed the presence of Type A human blood-stains on the boots. Both Jim Brown and Dudley had Type A blood.
In the early morning hours before daylight on Saturday, May 23, 1976, Mark and Robert Collins borrowed an automobile and went out to the scene of the crime for the purpose of burying Dudley's body, but were unable to locate it. According to Collins, Mark "could not remember where it was, where they killed him." Jim Brown did not take part in this expedition.
On May 27 Dudley's badly-decomposed body was found by the side of a country lane near Maysville. His death had resulted from two side-by-side shotgun wounds in the back. It was established that these wounds had been inflicted by No. 6...
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