The death penalty trial of a Tennessee man charged with shooting and killing a Huntsville police officer in 2019 will begin Wednesday.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have worked for more than a week to strike a jury in the capital murder trial of LaJeromeny Brown and opening statements are now set to take place at the Madison County Courthouse.

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty for Brown, charged in the slaying of police officer Billy Clardy III during a drug task force operation.

Circuit Judge Chris Comer will preside over the trial.

Brown, who has a Chattanooga address listed in court records, has a lengthy criminal history in Tennessee that includes conspiracy to distribute cocaine and crack cocaine, selling or delivering cocaine, possession of crack cocaine, assault, theft, evading arrest, criminal impersonation, and more, according to court records.

Brown, now 45, was charged in the fall of 2018 with aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated kidnapping, impersonating a police officer, and assault on police in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Clardy, a father of five, was 48 when he died in the Dec. 6, 2019 shooting. He was a 14-year veteran of the Huntsville police department and joined the Madison-Morgan County drug task force unit in 2018. He also worked as a deputy sheriff in neighboring Limestone County as well as a police officer in Fayetteville, Tenn. – about 40 miles north of Huntsville.

Before his career in law enforcement, Clardy was a decorated Army veteran.

“Billy Clardy was more than a Huntsville hero,” Mark McMurray, the Huntsville police chief at the time of the shooting, said of Clardy. “He was an American hero.”

The Madison County district attorney’s office will be represented at trial by Tim Gann and Tim Douthit. Brown is being defended by Huntsville attorneys Bruce Gardner and Eric Wood.