Texas to execute Alabama native Arthur Brown Jr. despite intellectual disability, innocence claims

A man on death row for the 1992 murders of four people in Texas is set to be executed Thursday evening — despite claims from his lawyers that he is intellectually disabled.

Arthur Brown Jr. and two other men were convicted some 30 years ago in the slayings of 32-year-old Jose Tovar; his wife Rachel Tovar’s 17-year-old son, Frank Farias; 19-year-old Jessica Quiñones, the pregnant girlfriend of Rachel’s second son; and their 21-year-old neighbor Audrey Brown.

All four were tied up in a Houston home and shot in the head. Rachel Tovar and Nicolas Cortez were also shot but survived the grisly attack.

Brown, an Alabama native, was part of a drug ring and responsible for carrying drugs between Texas and his home state, the Texas Tribune reported. Police said he would often seek out his supply of marijuana and cocaine from Rachel and Jose Tovar, who were known drug dealers at the time. Things turned violent the night of June 20, 1992, when Brown and his accomplices decided to rob the Tovars instead of paying.

Another man was killed in a similar attempted robbery at a drug dealer’s house in Alabama, the Tribune reported. That man, Terrell Hill, was the focus of the defense’s theory at trial, pinning him as the likely shooter.

Marion Dudley, one of Brown’s accomplices, was executed in 2006 while a third partner was sentenced to life in prison.

Brown meanwhile has maintained his innocence and his lawyers have argued someone else carried out the killings. They further claimed Brown’s conviction was tainted by racial bias, alleging one of the jurors decided he was guilty simply because he’s Black.

His legal team has also contended their client is intellectually disabled to the point that it would be unconstitutional to execute him.

“Mr. Brown’s intellectual limitations were known to his friends and family. … Individuals that knew Mr. Brown over the course of his life have described him consistently as ‘slow,’” his attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.

Brown’s attorneys have previously filed other appeals that have been rejected by lower courts.

With News Wire Services