Albert Greenwood Brown

Early life Brown grew up in Tulare, California, with his father's family that reportedly saw to it that "every kid went to college." He joined the US Marine Corps, but was brought to court-martial and discharged in 1975 for being absent without leave.

Early criminal history He moved to Riverside, California to live with his divorced mother and was soon charged with brutally raping and impregnating an 11-year-old girl. She said that Brown told her since he was a black man and she was a black girl; she was "in need of a feeding." She was forced to perform oral sex, and Brown then violently raped and choked her and sodomized her. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation. He was paroled on June 14, 1980, and found work cleaning and preparing new cars for sale at Rubidoux Motors in Riverside County. After finding the family's number in a phone book, Brown called Angelina Jordan from a payphone at around 7:30 p.m. to tell her where he left her daughter's body. According to court documents, he said, "Hello, Mrs. Jordan, Susie isn't home from school yet, is she? You will never see your daughter again. You can find her body on the corner of Victoria and Gibson." Susan's body was found after Brown repeatedly made calls to the Riverside Police Department and the Jordan residence. One of Brown's subsequent calls was recorded by a police officer.

Arrest and investigation Brown was arrested on November 6, 1980, after three witnesses came forward to identify him and his Pontiac Trans Am with a Rubidoux Motors paper plate near the site of the murder.

Brown's defense filed a motion of habeas corpus to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that he received ineffective counsel at his trial and that his sentence was a cruel and unusual punishment that violated the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. On September 19, 2007, Judge Michael Daly Hawkins denied Brown's appeal and upheld lower court rulings.

Execution proceedings Warden Vince Cullen met with Brown to read his death warrant. On August 29, 2010, a California court lifted a statewide injunction against capital punishment with the certification of new lethal injection procedures. On the next day, Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco sought a death warrant for Brown. Riverside County Judge Roger Luebs initially set Brown's execution for 12:01 a.m. on September 29, 2010.

Brown's execution at San Quentin State Prison's new lethal injection facility was halted days before it was scheduled to proceed on September 30, 2010. Brown would have been the first inmate scheduled to be executed in a newly built facility at San Quentin State Prison. The facility has been set up to use a protocol of a three-drug combination of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride or a single injection of sodium thiopental in which the dose is increased from 3 to 5 g to make it lethal by itself. Brown was examined by the prison staff to check that his veins were healthy enough for the injection process. The premises were also wired with speakers so that his last words could be broadcast.

Last-minute appeals Judge Fogel's ruling halted executions in California for over four years. Judge Fogel, whose 2006 ruling had halted executions in California, gave Brown until September 26 to decide on a method of execution, including the new lethal injection protocols. Brown refused to make a selection. Defense attorney John Grele described Brown as "a simple man with obvious neuropsychological deficits" who is unprepared to make such a decision. In the absence of a decision, the prison defaulted to preparing the three-drug protocol. Prosecutor Rod Pacheco wrote to Schwarzenegger urging him not to intervene. The governor refused Brown's request to commute the sentence to life imprisonment without parole, but he delayed the execution to 9 p.m. on September 30 to provide appeals courts more time to review the case. Fogel admitted his offer to Brown was "ill-advised" Scott Kernan of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation called the Arizona Department of Corrections "life savers" for providing 12 grams of the drug after the Texas Department of Criminal Justice denied a similar request. The state of California spent $36,415 to acquire an additional 521 g of sodium thiopental from Archimedes Pharma of Great Britain to last until 2014. Fogel stated that he understood the state would request a new execution date no earlier than 30 days after court hearings, which were expected in 2011. The Democratic campaign of Jerry Brown, who pledged to "enforce the laws" of California, denied any connection between the case and the election. Prosecutor Rod Pacheco, who supported Whitman, said that it would be unfair to accuse Jerry Brown of using the execution for political gain, as they had never discussed the case.