Execution Report: Mauriceo Brown

Mauriceo Mashawn Brown, 31, was executed by lethal injection on 19 July 2006 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a 25-year-old man during an attempted robbery.

On the night of 14 August 1996, Brown, then 21, Kenneth Foster, 19, Julius Steen, and DeWayne Dillard were riding around San Antonio in a car rented and driven by Foster. After visiting some music clubs, Brown brought out a gun and asked the other men if they wanted to "jack" some people. The men then committed two armed robberies. Around 2 a.m., they followed a pair of cars until they pulled into a driveway of a residence. Mary Patrick exited one of the cars and confronted the group of men about following her. Michael LaHood, who was Patrick's boyfriend, and who lived at the house with his parents, exited the other car. LaHood and Patrick began walking toward the house. Brown then got of out Foster's car and walked up the driveway. He approached LaHood, pointed the gun at his face, and demanded his money and car keys. When LaHood refused to comply, Brown shot him in the eye. He then got back in Foster's rental car, and the men drove away.

Patrick gave police a description of the assailants. Less than an hour later, Foster was pulled over for driving erratically. The four men, who were, according to a prosecutor, "stoned to the bone" and were also all on probation, were arrested. At the time of their arrest, Foster, Steen, and Dillard identified Brown as the shooter.

Steen also testified against Brown and Foster at their joint trial. Brown admitted shooting LaHood, but testified that he only shot him because he thought he heard a click of a gun, and that LaHood was getting ready to pull a gun and shoot him. LaHood, however, was unarmed.

Brown had no prior convictions, but he was on probation for auto theft and with a 10-year deferred sentence for selling a pipe bomb to an undercover officer at his high school. Also, testimony at his punishment hearing implicated the same group of men in an armed robbery that occurred a few days before LaHood was killed.

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