Robert Brown,sentenced to life in prison 20 years ago will get a new trial in an aggravated-murder case

Cleveland killer sentenced to life in prison 20 years ago will get a new trial in an aggravated-murder case because prosecutors did not reveal that a key witness was offered immunity in exchange for his testimony.
The outcome of the new trial, however, will be of little consequence to Robert Brown, 47. He was sentenced to life in prison twice in the 1980s. The first time was in late 1987 for murdering a man who backed into his parked Mercedes-Benz. The second was six months later, for ordering a hit on Tanya Greene, an operative in his drug ring who was expected to testify against him. Two decades later, a Cuyahoga County judge decided that prosecutorial misconduct in the Greene case will give Brown another day in court. During the Greene trial, former Assistant County Prosecutor Carmen Marino asked Alvin "Big Man" Elder, a key witness in the case, if he made any deals with the state in exchange for his testimony. Elder answered no when he testified. But a recent public-records request to the Cleveland Heights Police Department yielded evidence that Marino offered Elder immunity and then allowed him to lie about it under oath. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason withdrew an appeal against Brown's motion for a new trial after the evidence came to light in June. The case is another example of a recurring issue emerging from cases prosecuted in Cuyahoga County during the 1980s. And Marino has been at the heart of the controversy. Several defendants who have already served decades in prison, including one man on death row, have been granted new trials in the past year because Marino withheld critical evidence. Marino did not return a call seeking comment. Brown's attorney Philip Korey said his client's case underscores the need for open discovery in Ohio. The state's criminal rules of procedure allow prosecutors to decide what information to share with defense lawyers. This protects witnesses from retaliation, prosecutors say. The law requires them to share with defense lawyers any evidence that could help a defendant. But defense lawyers argue that they often are left unaware if critical evidence is withheld. Such was the case during Brown's trial, Korey said. "With open file discovery, this mischief could have been avoided entirely," he said. "It's one thing not to disclose exculpatory information. But it's another to lie about it and ask a witness questions that yield answers you know to be false." Still, prosecutors maintain that Brown is a ruthless and violent criminal who deserves both of the life sentences he received.
Police in the 1980s believed Brown was connected to Jamaican gangs involved in a fierce turf war with Colombians over control of the illegal drug trade in Cleveland and Miami. Brown was linked to about 20 slayings in South Florida, according to newspaper accounts. He was a suspect in a drug theft, in which a Miami cocaine dealer, his wife and two children were killed. In October 1987, Brown was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing a man who accidentally backed into Brown's parked Mercedes-Benz. Witnesses said Brown was ordering a sandwich at an East Side deli when the accident occurred. He tried to persuade the driver to ride with him to the Police Department to file a report. But when the driver declined and said he would follow Brown in his own car, Brown shot him four times in the chest and drove away. The entire 23rd floor of the Justice Center was under heavy security during that trial because of Brown's suspected gang affiliations. Law enforcement officers, including members of Cleveland's SWAT team, surrounded Judge James J. McMonagle's courtroom and frisked all who entered the floor. Two police officers, part of a Caribbean drug task force, and their families were placed under 24-hour surveillance after the arrests of two Jamaican hit men who said Brown had hired them to assassinate the officers. Meanwhile, police investigating the October 1986 murder of Tanya Greene followed a trail of clues and witnesses that led to Brown as well.
The case had gone unsolved for almost a year after Greene's body was found lying in the middle of Reyburn Road in Cleveland Heights, shot nine times in the face at close range. Police caught a lead when witnesses came forward and identified Brown, Elder and Paul Lumley as the killers. Elder, who was the victim's boyfriend, testified that Brown ordered the slaying and Lumley carried it out. But Lumley was killed in a shootout before the case went to trial. Brown was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison again. He filed an appeal and a motion for a new trial that same year, but the motion was denied and an appeals court upheld his conviction.
Korey took on the case in 2004, when three new witnesses came forward to testify on Brown's behalf. Two of them could not be located during the 1988 trial; the other was a juvenile at the time and chose not to testify. All three witnesses said it wasn't Brown but Elder who killed his girlfriend because she was cheating on him. He and Lumley conspired, shot her to death in Elder's car and dumped her body on the roadside. Elder, 41, is serving 1 1/2 years in prison for attempted felonious assault and domestic violence. His criminal history dates to 1986 and includes charges for robbery, auto theft, aggravated assault and drug trafficking. One of the witnesses said that she met with Marino in the courtroom during the 1988 trial and told him what she knew about the case. Marino was confrontational, she said, and told her to testify that she heard Brown order the two men to kill the victim. When she refused, Marino became irate and told her to leave the court, she said. Judge John Russo granted the new trial in October. Mason's office filed an appeal, arguing that Russo's decision was based on information from witnesses who were known at the time of the original trial. Also, Brown asked for a new trial nearly two decades into his prison sentence, prosecutors argued. The law requires such motions to be filed within 120 days of conviction, unless the defendant had no knowledge of evidence that could have changed the result of the trial. After reviewing the information about Marino's misconduct, Mason's office conceded that Brown deserves a new trial, and it withdrew the appeal. But prosecutors are confident the outcome will be the same for Brown.
"This was a bad guy," said First Assistant County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley. "The fact that we agreed to a new trial based on an inconsistency doesn't diminish the fact that this guy was convicted of the execution of another innocent individual who made the mistake of bumping into his brand-new Mercedes."