IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - An appeals court upheld the murder conviction of a man who shot an Iowa City man in 2012, rejecting claims Wednesday that the trial was tainted by media coverage of jury selection.
The evidence supports the guilty verdict returned against Brandon Brown in the death of 30-year-old Donelle Lindsey, and he failed to show that jurors were biased, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled.
After questioning by The Associated Press, the court acknowledged later Wednesday that the ruling had two key factual inaccuracies that would be corrected in coming days. The outcome, however, isn’t expected to change.
Investigators said that Brown shot Lindsey at close range after the two acquaintances argued outside an apartment building. Two witnesses reported seeing the shooting. A third witness said Brown admitted to shooting someone and testified she then drove that night to drop him off in Chicago. But prosecutors didn’t have any physical evidence such as a murder weapon or bullet casings, and defense attorneys argued the witnesses weren’t credible.
A Johnson County jury found Brown guilty, and he is serving life in prison.
On appeal, Brown argued that his right to a fair trial was tainted after a Cedar Rapids Gazette reporter who was covering the trial with a live blog published information about a potential juror during jury selection. The details included the names of the juror and his business, the fact that he serves on a local government board and comments he made about his wife’s safety in the neighborhood where the shooting happened.
Wednesday’s ruling mistakenly said the trial occurred in November 2014 and that a new Iowa court rule banning reporters from blogging and tweeting during jury selection was in effect. In reality, the trial took place a year earlier and the rule was not in place. The opinion will be amended and refiled by June 10 to correct those errors, the court said.
Regardless, Gazette managing editor Zack Kucharski said Wednesday the reporter made a mistake in posting the juror’s biographical information and quickly removed the brief post after it came to the judge’s attention. The juror testified he was disappointed that the information was published, and he was dismissed from the pool. The judge promised other prospective jurors that reporters would not live-blog the rest of jury selection.
Brown argued the incident had a chilling effect during the rest of voir dire as other jurors, afraid of publicity, refused to give honest answers to questions eliciting their views on sensitive topics such as race and gun violence. As such, he claimed, his right to a fair trial was violated.
The three-judge panel said Brown offered “no evidence in support of his argument.” Only three more potential jurors were questioned after the incident, and there’s no indication that they were untruthful, the court said. Even if jurors were nervous their responses would be published, the judge took several steps to mitigate their concerns, the panel said.
In addition, “there was substantial evidence” for jurors to find Brown guilty, the court added.
Kucharski said the ruling supports a long-standing recognition by Iowa courts of the importance of media access to trials.
Brown’s public defender didn’t immediately return a message.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.