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DA ends quest for death penalty in 1993 officer killing

7 years 8 months 3 weeks ago Friday, July 01 2016 Jul 1, 2016 July 01, 2016 9:29 AM July 01, 2016 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - Kevan Brumfield, convicted of first-degree murder in the 1993 shooting death of Cpl. Betty Smothers and wounding of store manager Kimen Lee, will not be put to death by the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month shot down Moore's request for further proceedings on whether Brumfield has an intellectual disability that prevents the state from executing him. The Court has ruled that people who are found to be intellectually disabled or mentally ill cannot be executed.

District Attorney Hillar Moore said Friday that after conferring with Smothers' family, he has decided against any further steps to get additional hearings. Brumfield will be resentenced to life in prison.

"This concludes twenty-three years of trauma to the Smothers family, as well as an equal amount of years of intensive investigation, prosecution, and appellate work," Moore said in a news release.

Henri Broadway, who also was sentenced to death in the case, remains on death row while seeking appeals.

Smothers, who was 36, was working an off-duty security assignment when she and Lee, a grocery store manager, were attacked at the after-hours deposit at a bank. Smothers, a single mother of six children, was killed and Lee was injured.

Moore has said the death of Justice Antonin Scalia critically changed the balance of views on the court in opposition to the case.

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