Fredrick Brown walks into court Tuesday for the first of two new trials in Judge Barry Steelman's courtroom. Brown pleaded guilty to two murders about 20 years ago, but won new trials over an issue with sentencing.A jury found a 38-year-old Chattanooga man guilty of voluntary manslaughter today in a decades old murder case.
He now faces a separate trial on a second murder.
In 1993, Fredrick Brown pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of Samuel Richard Scott and Corey Strickland, who Brown shot to death while free on bond for the Scott murder.
Judge Douglas Meyer sentenced Brown to two life sentences to run together. At the time, a life sentence in Tennessee was 60 years with parole eligibility at 36 years.
But Tennessee law requires that the sentences run consecutively for anyone convicted of a new crime committed while on bond for a previous charge.
Brown won an appeal more than two years ago on that legal issue and was granted trials in both murders.
He has a hearing on the Strickland shooting case on April 9, but there is no trial date set for the second murder trial.
For more details, see tomorrow's Times Free Press.