30 October 2017 :

The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted death-row prisoner Sherwood Brown a new trial, vacating his conviction and death sentence based on exculpatory DNA results and false forensic testimony. In what it described as an "extraordinary" and rare move, it overturned Brown's conviction based on the power of his pleadings and exhibits, without need for an evidentiary hearing. The case has been remanded to DeSoto County Circuit Court for a new trial. Brown, 49, Black, was convicted in the Jan. 7, 1993 killings of a 13-year-old girl, her mother and grandmother. In the sentencing phase of his 1995 trial, Brown got the death penalty for murdering 13-year-old Evangela Boyd because jurors found he had killed her while committing felony child abuse. He got life sentences for the deaths of the child’s mother, Verline Boyd, 48, and 82-year-old grandmother, Betty Boyd, who were also killed, in Betty Boyd’s home south of Eudora.