Mauriceo Brown

Mauriceo Mashawn Brown, 31, was executed by lethal injection on 19 July 2006 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a 25-year-old man during an attempted robbery.

On the night of 14 August 1996, Brown, then 21, Kenneth Foster, 19, Julius Steen, and DeWayne Dillard were riding around San Antonio in a car rented and driven by Foster. After visiting some music clubs, Brown brought out a gun and asked the other men if they wanted to "jack" some people. The men then committed two armed robberies. Around 2 a.m., they followed a pair of cars until they pulled into a driveway of a residence. Mary Patrick exited one of the cars and confronted the group of men about following her. Michael LaHood, who was Patrick's boyfriend, and who lived at the house with his parents, exited the other car. LaHood and Patrick began walking toward the house. Brown then got of out Foster's car and walked up the driveway. He approached LaHood, pointed the gun at his face, and demanded his money and car keys. When LaHood refused to comply, Brown shot him in the eye. He then got back in Foster's rental car, and the men drove away.

Patrick gave police a description of the assailants. Less than an hour later, Foster was pulled over for driving erratically. The four men, who were, according to a prosecutor, "stoned to the bone" and were also all on probation, were arrested. At the time of their arrest, Foster, Steen, and Dillard identified Brown as the shooter.

Steen also testified against Brown and Foster at their joint trial. Brown admitted shooting LaHood, but testified that he only shot him because he thought he heard a click of a gun, and that LaHood was getting ready to pull a gun and shoot him. LaHood, however, was unarmed.

Brown had no prior convictions, but he was on probation for auto theft and with a 10-year deferred sentence for selling a pipe bomb to an undercover officer at his high school. Also, testimony at his punishment hearing implicated the same group of men in an armed robbery that occurred a few days before LaHood was killed.

A jury convicted Brown and Foster of capital murder in May 1997 and sentenced them to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Brown's conviction and sentence in February 1999. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Foster's death sentence was overturned in March 2005 by a U.S. district judge. The state has appealed that decision, however, and Foster remains on death row at this writing. Julius Steen was given immunity from the death sentence in exchange for his testimony against Brown and Foster. He was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison, where he remains at this writing. DeWayne Dillard was charged in the killing, but not tried. Instead, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life for a killing that occurred two weeks prior to the LaHood slaying. He is also in prison at this writing.

In an interview from death row prior to his execution, Brown retracted his confession. "I was in the car," he said. "When I looked up, everything happened so fast." In the interview, Brown said that Dillard shot LaHood, but that Dillard and the other two threatened him and his family if he did not take the fall for the LaHood murder. "I was naive, I didn't know any better," he said. He called his trial "a mockery based on a lie that I made a statement and everybody else made a statement that I was the shooter."

"That claim is preposterous," one prosecutor, Mike Ramos said. Jack McGinnis, another prosecutor, said, "Even if his new story is true, that doesn't say he's not guilty of capital murder and deserving of the death penalty. His new story doesn't get him out of the woods. It gets him to where Foster is right now." Under Texas law, a defendant can be found guilty of capital murder for participating in a killing, even if he or she doesn't personally perform the killing.

At his execution, Brown expressed sorrow to the victim's loved ones, and love to his family. He then apologized to the victim's loved ones one more time and said, "God bless you all." The lethal injection was then started. Brown's mother, Cynthia Luckey, fell to the floor sobbing as her son drew his final breath. "Why didn't they give him another chance," she wailed as two of her children comforted her. "He was not guilty." Brown was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m.