By Caitlin Kasunich
A Brooklyn Supreme Court judge postponed attorney arguments until Monday regarding whether or not a new trial should take place in the murder case against 17-year-old Tiana Browne, which ended in a mistrial on Wednesday.
Browne is charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of her cousin, 15-year-old Shannon Braithwaite, in September 2008.
The arguments will resume on Monday, Oct. 18, at 10 a.m. under Judge Albert Tomei, who declared a mistrial less than a day after the case was turned over to a jury Tuesday.
New details emerged on the circumstances leading to the mistrial, which was based on the prosecution’s failure to reveal the criminal record of one of its key witnesses, Marva Braithwaite, the mother of the victim.
Defense attorney Douglas Rankin said that he found out about Braithwaite’s record from his client’s grandmother, Jennifer Browne, who is Marva Braithwaite’s first cousin and was also a witness. According to Rankin, Browne heard her own criminal record mentioned when her name was read to the jury among other witnesses and wondered why her cousin’s record had not also been acknowledged.
“She said to me, ‘How come they mentioned my criminal record, but they didn’t mention hers?’ And I said, ‘Who’s her?’ She said, ‘Marva.’ That’s when I approached the DA, and that’s when I contacted the judge,” Rankin said. “The judge ordered the DA to check this out, and then the DA checked it out, and it turned out that she had a felony conviction.”
Braithwaite was the first witness called by the prosecution, and her testimony set the tone for the remainder of the trial. Rankin said that the elder Browne told him that the conviction against Braithwaite was for felony assault. Although prosecutor Mark Hale confirmed to the court the fact of the woman’s criminal record, he did not reveal what it was for. The district attorney’s office did not return calls to comment on this issue.
“The point of her testimony was to bring to light certain facts that, the prosecutor argued, supported the fact that my client knew what she was doing and that this was an intentional murder as opposed to her suffering from a mental disease or defect at the time,” Rankin said.
Rankin said that the prosecutor is required to turn over any criminal records that witnesses may have if he is aware of them after the jury is sworn but before opening statements.
“I made a timely request, and the prosecutor—instead of running a RAP sheet, which is the formal protocol in the Brooklyn DA’s office—spoke to the witness and relied on what the witness told him as opposed to verifying it independently,” Rankin said.
Thursday’s hearing was presided over by Judge John Ingram, who decided to send the case back to Judge Tomei on Monday since he felt that he knew the case best. He also apologized on behalf of the court for the “horrendous waste of assets and time” that the botched trial caused.
Throughout the hearing Thursday, Tiana Browne swayed from side to side in her dark suit and occasionally glanced over her left shoulder at her family sitting in the courtroom to smile at them. Her hair was braided in short pigtails that stuck out of the side of her head, and her hands were cuffed behind her back.
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