Special to the News
Last Thursday Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Northern District of Alabama’s denial of habeas corpus relief for double murderer Wakilii Brown on August 21.
Brown was convicted in the Talladega County Circuit Court and sentenced to death on May 5, 2008.
In March 2001, Brown brutally beat his 26-year-old girlfriend, Cherea Jemison, and Cherea’s mother, 49-year-old Dotty Jemison, to death with a claw hammer.
Investigators discovered their bodies inside Dotty’s house in Sylacauga shortly before midnight on March 11, 2001. They had been dead for 36 to 48 hours.
Dotty was gagged and bound at the wrists and ankles with duct tape. Both women died from multiple blunt-force injuries to the head and neck.
Investigators tracked Brown to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, where he had barricaded himself in an apartment. For nearly 25 hours, Brown, who was armed with a gun, refused to surrender.
Police officers fired at least 16 canisters of tear gas into the apartment to end the standoff, at which time Brown was arrested.
Brown stole Cherea’s car and checkbook and took her three children with him when he fled Alabama. Her car, with her checkbook inside, was found about 100 feet from the barricaded apartment. Cherea’s children were found at Brown’s mother’s house in Cleveland.
Brown was convicted on three counts of capital murder. The jury recommended the death penalty, and the trial court sentenced him accordingly.
Brown’s convictions and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, and his state post-conviction proceeding concluded without relief. The Northern District of Alabama denied habeas relief, and the Eleventh Circuit has now correctly affirmed that court’s decision.
Attorney General Marshall commended Assistant Attorney General Henry M. Johnson for his successful work on this case.
