PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In a significant ruling last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said a man’s conviction and death sentence case that’s more than two decades old will stand. It’s the case that prompted the high court to direct that the Attorney General oversee the Philadelphia District Attorney’s conviction integrity unit.
Lavar Brown was convicted of two murders in the 2000s. The first, involving a Rite Aid robbery with other co-defendants, and the other, for killing a cooperating witness in that robbery.
He was convicted and sentenced to death, and had several failed appeal attempts, but when District Attorney Larry Krasner took office, he sided with Brown.
“We came on board after the Philadelphia DA's office alleged and agreed in court papers that what actually happened was Lavar Brown was not named in this case until detectives had basically investigated an unnamed suspect who was intentionally kept out of police paperwork,” said Chris Lynett, who represented the victims’ family.
Lynett said that wasn’t accurate, so he asked the Supreme Court to step in.
“I was able to present evidence in the first instance, the Supreme Court, because of the unique nature of these proceedings, affirmatively showing that the representations made by the District Attorney's office, the defendant, were, at a minimum, incomplete and at best misleading.
The high court sided with Lynett, keeping Brown’s conviction and sentence, and admonished the District Attorney, ordering the Attorney General to review all cases involving overturned convictions.
