Convicted murder slated for execution Tuesday

James Willie Brown A convicted murderer described by his own brother as
"the devil's son" is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection.

James Willie Brown, 55, is set to be executed for the rape and murder of
topless dancer Brenda Sue Watson in 1975. His execution is scheduled for 7
p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, where
death row inmates are held.

On Friday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied a request for
clemency on Brown's behalf. The parole board has the sole authority in
Georgia to grant clemency to a condemned inmate.

The U.S. Supreme Court may still decide to entertain a last-minute appeal
by Brown's lawyers.

The parole board refused to spare Brown's life based on pleas that he is
mentally ill. Brown's lawyer claims his client has a history of mental
illness and suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Jeffrey Ertel, a lawyer with the Federal Defender Program, offered
testimony to the parole board from a psychiatrist who evaluated Brown. The
parole board hired its own psychiatrist to evaluate Brown.

The Friday hearing was closed to the public, but the parole board quickly
announced it had rejected Brown's clemency pleas.

Similar concerns raised by Brown's attorneys were rejected in several
court appeals.

Brown met Watson at her job in Atlanta. He took her to a hotel lounge in
Stone Mountain, where they dined, drank and danced for several hours.
Brown then took her to an old logging road nearby, where he bound, raped
and sodomized Watson. Brown forced Watson's underwear so deep into her
throat it was not discovered until her autopsy. Watson suffocated.

Brown and his brother, Harold, were raised by a sadistic, alcoholic
father, Harold Brown said in an interview last year. While Harold Brown
served in the military and later worked as a paramedic and firefighter in
Gwinnett County, James Willie Brown embarked on a path of crime and
assaults on women that culminated in Watson's killing.

"I thought when my dad died the devil died," Harold Brown said, "but I
think he's the devil's son."

Harold Brown said Friday he believes his brother "is getting what he
deserves," and he discounted the idea that James Willie Brown is mentally
ill.

"Knowing him, growing up with him, there's no doubt in my mind he was just
a very mean, coldhearted person," Harold Brown said.

He said he doesn't plan to attend his brother's execution.

Brown will be the 33rd man executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme
Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973.

(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)

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