PORTLAND – Brandon Brown’s attorney asked the state’s highest court Thursday to overturn his client’s conviction for attempted murder, saying the 24-year-old Portland man didn’t get a fair trial.

Brown was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison for shooting James Sanders outside a club in the Old Port on June 24, 2008. Sanders, a former Marine who served as a sniper in Iraq and Afghanistan, was paralyzed from the waist down.

Attorney Stephen Schwartz said the prosecutor was out of bounds during the trial when she repeatedly noted the fact that Brown wore baggy pants low around his hips. Schwartz said Deputy District Attorney Meg Elam used that detail to cast Brown as a thug and a menace to society.

Schwartz also said the jury should not have been allowed to hear evidence that Brown had lied to a judge in an earlier misdemeanor case.

“He was branded as a criminal repeatedly, right out of the gate,” Schwartz argued in his appeal before the seven justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. “Brandon Brown didn’t stand a chance.”

Elam said references to Brown’s low-riding pants were relevant because during a prior confrontation between Brown and Sanders, Brown had been tossed out of a strip club in Portland and been embarrassed when his pants fell down.

The prosecutor said she did not present a biased picture of Brown to the jury.

“Brandon Brown was fairly and justly convicted of attempting to kill James Sanders,” Elam told the court.

Brown shot Sanders with a .357-caliber handgun equipped with a laser sight. At his trial in November 2009, he testified that he fired the shot in self-defense. He said Sanders threw a punch at him, picked him up and slammed him on the street outside the Cactus Club.

Brown testified that someone pulled Sanders off him, and he stumbled toward the center of Fore Street. Brown said he pulled his gun from his waistband and fired at Sanders because he saw Sanders reaching for a knife on the street.

Sanders, who now lives in the Atlanta area, testified that he never possessed, saw or reached for any knife that night.

He told the jury that he was trying to break up an argument outside the club when Brown jumped into the fray. Sanders admitted that he tackled Brown to the ground, but said he never punched or kicked Brown. Other witnesses backed up Sanders’ story.

Sanders recalled being pulled off Brown. He said he was about eight or 10 feet away when Brown fired the gun, hitting him in the chest. Doctors at Maine Medical Center were not sure if he would survive.

Justice Thomas Warren imposed a sentence of 27 years, with 10 years suspended. Brown will be on probation for four years after his release, during which he must do 300 hours of community service. He was also ordered to pay $10,000 toward work on Sanders’ home and vehicle, to make them handicapped-accessible.

There is no timetable for a decision by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:

tmaxwell@pressherald.com

 

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