SANTA ANA : Jury Deliberating Brown Murder Case

A Superior Court jury on Wednesday began deliberations on the fate of David Arnold Brown, the Anaheim Hills computer entrepreneur accused of orchestrating his wife’s 1985 murder and setting up his own teen-age daughter to take the fall.

Deliberations followed an unusual decision by Judge Donald A. McCartin to allow both the prosecutor and defense attorney in the six-week trial an extra round of closing arguments, despite Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey Robinson’s objections.

McCartin said Robinson might otherwise have an “undue advantage” because he had time overnight to prepare his rebuttal to the defense’s closing argument.

Defense attorney Gary Pohlson used his extra time with jurors to urge them to put aside any negative impressions they have developed toward the defendant in assessing his guilt or innocence.

“He may be be lacking in charm or good looks. He may have done some very bad things,” Pohlson said. “But that does not make him guilty of murder.”

But Robinson countered: “This charade has gone on long enough--please end it.”

He urged jurors to close out Brown’s “evil reign” by returning a verdict of first-degree murder against him, along with a finding that he acted for financial gain--$835,000 in the victim’s insurance policies. Brown could then face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Brown’s former wife, 24-year-old Linda Brown, was shot dead in her sleep in their Garden Grove home in March, 1985. Brown’s 14-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, initially confessed to the killing and was sent to juvenile prison.

But more than three years later, she pinned blame on her father, saying he had given her directions on how to carry out the killing and prepare a medical mixture to feign suicide afterward. David Brown told her that she would spend little or no time in prison because of her youth, Cinnamon asserted.