New trial date set for Patricia Brown
A La Quinta woman accused in the 2003 death of her 2-year-old stepson will have a second chance two years after she was convicted of murder, with a new trial date set for early May.
Patricia Brown, 52, was found guilty in August 2016 of second-degree murder and assault on a child for the Jan. 16, 2003 death of Deetrick Brown, her husband’s son from another relationship.
Prosecutors allege that the boy, who suffered several seizures leading up to his death, was shaken and slammed into surfaces on his head over the course of the eight months that he was in her care.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge John G. Evans ruled last week that the evidence presented at Brown’s trial was insufficient for a conviction and granted Brown a new trial.
On Friday, Evans additionally granted Brown a new trial on the grounds that her trial lawyer, Brenda Miller, provided ineffective assistance of counsel. A new trial date was set for May 4.
Evans stated in his ruling last week that there was no evidence of anyone witnessing Brown abusing the child, though the tot had injuries and scarring that prosecutors alleged was caused by his stepmother.
Family members claimed that the toddler’s seizures were the result of numerous undiagnosed ailments he had suffered since birth and that he displayedabnormal behavior, including overeating, standoffishness from other children and caretakers — including Brown — and self-mutilation through excessive scratching and picking at himself. The family maintained that scarring on one of his hands was the result of that behavior, while prosecutors alleged that Brown had submerged his hand in a hot liquid.
The judge ruled there was not enough medical evidence to support the theory that Deetrick had suffered abusive head trauma to cause the seizures, leading the prosecution to introduce other unrelated evidence such as the hand scarring.
“The only reason for introducing such evidence was to convince the jury that since Patricia Brown had been abusing Deetrick, she must have engaged in the conduct amounting to abusive head trauma,” Evans wrote.
Deetrick was in the custody of his biological mother until June 2001 but was removed from the home by Child Protective Services due to the alleged abuse of at least one of his siblings. The boy was then moved to a foster home until the Browns took custody in April 2002 on reconciling after a two-year separation during which Deetrick was born.
Assistant District Attorney Michelle Paradise said in her closing argument that the toddler showed no signs of abuse or medical issues until he lived with the Browns, alleging that the boy’s stepmother resented having to care for him.
“Patricia Brown was forced to raise him, a child she didn’t want, a child she didn’t love, a child from another woman,” she said.
The prosecutor told jurors that no injuries were noted by physicians while the child was in foster care, nor did he suffer any abuse at the hands of his biological mother.
But Evans ruled that the abnormal behavior and medical issues claimed by family members were in fact described by medical professionals, as well as Deetrick’s foster mother, during the time he was in her care. The behavior continued manifesting itself from the first day the child entered the Browns’ home, before the abuse could have possibly started, the judge found.
“The weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that Deetrick was not a normal, healthy child long before he came into the care of the Browns,” Evans wrote.
The judge also ruled Friday that Brown’s attorney was unprepared for trial in terms of handling the extensive medical evidence and failed to inquire on witnesses that could have bolstered Brown’s case.
Evans pointed particularly to what he said was Miller’s failure to recall one of the prosecution witnesses, a doctor who testified then sent an email to prosecutors essentially recanting what he said in court.
The judge also said Miller failed “to object to the prosecutor’s pervasive appeal to the emotions, passions and sympathy of the jury,” which “basically allowed the prosecution to paint a picture that Ms. Brown was a monster.”
Brown’s sister, Belinda Cooper, said she felt “really positive” while outside the courthouse with jubilant family members. Cooper said “that the judge validated everything that we’ve been saying is just a blessing in itself. Everyone that knows her knows that she could never in a million years hurt a child.”
Brown and her husband, Derrick, were first charged with murder in 2003, but a judge who presided over a preliminary hearing that fall ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed to trial on that charge.
The Browns were re-arrested on Jan. 16, 2013 — 10 years to the day after the boy’s death — and his father was acquitted of the charges midway through the trial.
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