SANTA ANA : Brown’s Sentencing Set Back to Sept. 17

The sentencing of convicted murderer David Brown, who faces life in prison for orchestrating his wife’s 1985 killing, was postponed Wednesday following a death in the family of one of the lawyers in the case. The court date was rescheduled for Sept. 17.

The delay gives the 37-year-old Brown additional time to work with a sentencing specialist whom he has apparently hired in an attempt to dissuade Judge Donald A. McCartin from sending him to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

“I’m really curious to hear what (the sentencing specialist) is going to say,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey Robinson.

In order to give Brown any lesser sentence--such as life with the chance for parole--McCartin would have to reject the jury’s finding that Brown had his wife Linda killed in part for financial gain, according to prosecutors’ reading of the law.

The former computer businessman collected $835,000 on his wife’s life insurance while his teen-aged daughter--whom he persuaded to commit the murder--sat in prison for nearly four years before implicating her father in the plot. Brown was convicted in June.