Austin American Statesman :: The Trials of Eroy Brown

The Trials of Elroy Brown

by Michael Berryhill

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Storied Texas prisoner approved for parole
By Mike Ward

" ... Habern credited a 2011 book by Houston journalist Michael Berryhill — "The Trials of Eroy Brown: The Case That Shook the Texas Prison System" — with raising awareness of the details of the case and Brown's long term of incarceration."

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Austin American-Statesman :: The Trials of Eroy Brown

The Trials of Eroy Brown

by Michael Berryhill

Buy It Now

The Trials of Eroy Brown: The Murder Case That Shook the Texas Prison SystemBrown case highlights reluctance to parole longtime offenders
By Mike Ward

Eroy Brown, whose acquittal on murder charges involving the deaths of a prison warden and a farm manager in the 1980s shook the Lone Star corrections system to its roots, is coming up for parole again.

Brown is serving 90 years as a habitual criminal for robbing a Waco convenience store of $12 and some candy bars. The graying, almost 60-year-old is serving time in a South Carolina prison because a federal judge thought his safety could not be guaranteed in a Texas lockup. If he's granted parole, he would be sent to a pre-release program in California.

If he's denied parole, he would be released within five years without any supervision under controversial early release policies enacted in the 1970s to ease prison crowding in Texas.

"He got more publicity for (the acquittal) than Christ on the cross," said Houston attorney Bill Habern, who was Brown's lawyer on the murder charges. "The (prison) system still to this day doesn't believe he should have been acquitted. ... What is probably going to happen is called getting even."

Brown's case highlights a long-standing issue with Texas' parole system: a reluctance to parole longtime offenders with high-profile cases, even those who soon will be freed anyway, and those with serious and costly health problems.

Brown is earning liberal credits for good behavior on his sentence, which he would finish by 2017, according to current calculations. At that time, he would be released free and clear, with no supervision.

Brown is among just 4,208 of Texas' 156,000 convicts who are still accruing such credits under old laws, a number that dwindles each year as more are paroled or released.

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Houston Chronicle :: The Trials of Eroy Brown

Bookish picks: 2011 Texas Titles
Reviewed by Maggie Galehouse

We are encouraged to buy local and regional in grocery stores and farmers’ markets.

Why not buy books with the same philosophy — to support Texas authors, stories and presses?

All the 2011 books listed below have a strong Texas connection.

Happy reading!

100,000 Hearts
By Denton A. Cooley, M.D.
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100,000 Hearts: A Surgeon’s Memoir, by Denton Cooley, M.D. (UT Press) Cooley, who founded the Texas Heart Institute in 1962, grew up in Houston and attended the University of Texas. While in medical school at Johns Hopkins, Cooley assisted in an operation to help correct a congenital heart defect in an infant. This led him to specialize in heart surgery.

Crazy from the Heat

By James H. Evans

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Crazy From the Heat: A Chronicle of Twenty Years in the Big Bend by James H. Evans. (University of Texas Press). This photography book offers landscapes and panoramas — in both black and white, and color — of the biggest state park in Texas. People, plants, animals, objects, even an “exploded view” of ‘Shirley’s Fried Pie’ make this collection personal and universal.

The Trials of Elroy Brown

by Michael Berryhill

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The Trials of Eroy Brown, by Michael Berryhill. (UT Press) In 1981, a black inmate at the Ellis prison farm near Huntsville killed two white Texas prison officials. The man who admitted to killing them, a burglar and robber named Eroy Brown, surrendered, claiming self-defense. The Trials of Eroy Brown focuses on Brown’s defense and is based on trial documents, exhibits, and journalistic accounts of Brown’s three trials, which ended in his acquittal.




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Publisher's Weekly :: The Trials of Eroy Brown

The Trials of Elroy Brown

by Michael Berryhill

Buy It Now

Review:
The Trials of Eroy Brown: The Murder Case That Shook the Texas Prison System

Well documented and unsentimental, Berryhill's account of this infamous 30- year-old murder case that pitted one man's innocent plea against Texas's political might provides a jarring portrait of a once-medieval state prison. Berryhill, chair of the journalism program at Texas Southern University, retells how Eroy Brown, a hapless criminal, was serving 25 years in prison for aiding in a convenience store robbery, stealing $12 and two candy bars. Witnesses tell several versions of how in 1981, while Brown was at the Ellis prison farm near Huntsville, two white Texas prison guards were killed by Brown, who was also shot, but it was claimed that after being threatened, he grabbed one guard's weapon and drowned the other guard, leaving the question of how Brown could have been shot. Brown was charged, and he pleaded self-defense. A court had earlier ruled that Texas inmates were treated with unusual cruelty, supporting Brown's plea, but he faced aggressive prosecutorial maneuvers and willing inmate testimony. After three trials ending finally in acquittal, Brown, now 59, remains in prison for his earlier conviction. Berryhill documents how the old prison rules are no longer in effect, with federal watchdogs looking out for trouble. 16 b&w photos; 3 maps. (Oct.)

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Dallas Morning News :: The Trials of Eroy Brown

The Trials of Elroy Brown

by Michael Berryhill

Buy It Now

Book on infamous prison killing case to be published by UT Press
By Diane Jennings/Reporter
Jun. 9, 2011

Thirty years ago the case of a Texas inmate, Eroy Brown, who was acquitted in the killing of two prison employees, shocked Texas prison officials. Now a book about the episode is being published by the University of Texas Press.

The Trials of Eroy Brown The Murder Case that Shook the Texas Prison system tells the story of the convicted burglar who admitted shooting a farm manager and struggling with a warden until he drowned in a ditch. Brown claimed he was acting in self defense and was tried three times. The first time he went to court ended in a mistrial, then two separate juries acquitted Brown of each death.

The publisher says defense attorneys Craig Washington, Bill Habern and Tim Sloan, "undertook heroic strategies" on behalf of Brown.
"I knew he was innocent," Habern says. "The evidence convinced the jury."

Habern says he's glad to see the publication of The Trials of Eroy Brown. "I thought the story would never be told."

The book by Michael Berryhill, chairman of the journalism department at Texas Southern University, costs $29.95 and will be released in October.

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