By Charles Shiver
ADEL, Ga. – The man convicted of murdering an Adel woman in 1998 might have a chance at freedom following a turn of events in September in the Georgia Supreme Court.
Two Georgia Supreme Court justices recently asked Attorney General Chris Carr to revisit the case against Devonia Inman, who claims that he was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Taco Bell employee Donna Brown, 21 years ago in Adel.
Chief Justice Harold Melton and Presiding Justice David Nahmias issued the concurring opinions concerning Inman, who was born in 1978 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Nahmias, the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, has even questioned “whether the state should continue opposing Inman’s efforts to obtain a new trial.”
Attorney General Carr plans to follow the justices’ recommendations. “The Attorney General and members of our senior staff take very seriously the court’s concerns, and are personally and fully reviewing the matter in conjunction with the district attorney who would be responsible for any prosecution arising out of this case,” Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman Katie Byrd told the Atlanta newspaper.
“We were very gratified to see the Supreme Court’s order, especially the forceful and courageous concurring opinions of Chief Justice Melton and Presiding Justice Nahmias,” Inman’s legal team from Troutman Sanders said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing the fight for justice for Mr. Inman.”
Inman’s defense attorneys would like to take sworn testimony from the man they allege was the actual killer – convicted murderer Hercules Brown II – and from Kwame Spaulding – who recanted his testimony at trial that Inman confessed to the murder while they were in jail together.
A Cook County Superior Court judge sentenced Inman to life in prison without parole after a jury found him guilty of Ms. Brown’s murder. She was shot and killed in the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 1998, outside Taco Bell while carrying more than $1,700 in the day’s receipts out of the restaurant on her way to deposit them in the bank.
Attorneys with the Atlanta law firm Troutman Sanders are trying to win Inman a new trial. They are representing him pro bono (for free). They claim that prosecutors presented no physical evidence at the 2001 trial that tied Inman to the murder. They also allege that two witnesses have recanted their statements implicating Inman and testimony by a newspaper delivery woman is dubious. She told investigators that she saw Inman driving Ms. Brown’s car after the slaying.
During the original trial in Cook County, Inman’s defense attorneys attempted to present witness testimony that Hercules Brown II – who was a Taco Bell employee at the time of the murder – told the witnesses that he had murdered Ms. Brown (they were not related). The trial judge did not allow the defense to present the witness testimony before the jury; he decided no evidence supported the witnesses’ claims.
Years later, DNA testing of what was apparently dried saliva in a mask made from sweatpants, found inside Donna Brown’s abandoned car (police found it about a mile away from Taco Bell), matched Hercules Brown II. Now in prison without parole for a heinous double murder himself, Brown has invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when questioned by authorities about the mask. Still, the original trial judge released an order stating that the DNA evidence doesn’t warrant overturning Devonia Inman’s murder conviction.
According to Superior Court Judge L.A. McConnell Jr.’s order released in 2014, “Additionally, the State admitted several similar transactions involving cases where the Defendant had committed the offenses of Armed Robbery and Attempted Robbery, each involving restaurant store employees. A separate incident was admitted into evidence where the Defendant got into an altercation with a jailer, Maria Clay, while awaiting trial and had threatened to kill her ‘next.’”
However, Justice Nahmias wrote in his recent opinion, “Everyone involved in our criminal justice system should dread the conviction and incarceration of innocent people.”
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nahmias said as a justice, he has reviewed more than 1,500 murder cases. In some, judges and appellate courts granted new trials to defendants who appeared not to be guilty. “Of the multitude of cases in which a new trial has been denied, Inman’s case is the one that causes me the most concern that an innocent person remains convicted and sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison…Let justice be done,” Nahmias wrote.
In his opinion, Chief Justice Melton stated: “The evidence that potentially connects a different person other than Inman to the murder in this case raises some very troubling issues.”
In 2014, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to even consider Inman’s appeal of McConnell’s decision. However, in December 2018, a Chattooga County Superior Court judge declined to grant the state’s motion to dismiss a claim by Devonia Tyrone Inman that he was wrongfully convicted.
Chattooga County Superior Court Judge Kristina Cook Graham said the state’s request was “premature,” following an hours-long hearing.
Eventually, in July of this year, Judge Graham declined to dismiss the case. She ruled that Inman’s lawyers could question Hercules Brown.
The Attorney General’s Office attempted to overturn Judge Graham’s ruling. In September, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected the state’s request, and its order included the two concurring opinions by Melton and Nahmias. The Supreme Court decided to allow Inman’s habeas corpus challenge to move forward.
There is the possibility that Inman could be set free pending a new trial, if Attorney General Carr agrees to the new trial. Alapaha Judicial Circuit District Attorney Dick Perryman would then have to decide whether to prosecute the case in an attempt to get a new conviction, or to dismiss the charges. Of the two men who prosecuted the case during the 2001 murder trial, Bob Ellis no longer practices law, and Tim Eidson, who served as Chief Assistant D.A. at the time, has passed away.
On Nov. 10, 2000, Hercules Brown II and Wesley Mason Jr. held up Bennett’s Grocery and left the store with the cash register. Carroll Bennett, the owner, and Becky Browning, his employee, died after being beaten with a baseball bat.
In May 2002, Brown pleaded guilty to the murders, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Brown named Mason as his partner in the crime, and Mason later received a life in prison sentence.
The Georgia Innocence Project has stayed vigilant with the Inman case, as have other watchdog groups in criminal justice and media, gaining global exposure most recently when investigative journalist outfit The Intercept created a podcast, “Murderville,” around the case.
