Brian Brookins was sentenced to death by the State of Georgia for the murders of his wife and stepdaughter
According to court documents Brian Brookins would fatally shoot Suzanne Brookins before running down and shooting fifteen year old Samantha Giles in the back and then in the head
Brian Brookins would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Where Is Brian Brookins Now
Brian Brookins is incarcerated at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
Brian Brookins Case
The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man found guilty of killing his wife and teenage stepdaughter in 2005 in Baldwin County.
Brian Duane Brookins was found guilty of felony murder, aggravated stalking, cruelty to children in the third degree, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon following the 2005 murders. The jury recommended the death penalty for the killings of Sandra Suzanne Brookins, his wife, and 15-year-old Samantha Rae Giles, his stepdaughter.
Brookins appealed after the trial court denied his motion for a new trial. He argued that he was entitled to a verdict of guilty but intellectually disabled. That verdict would eliminate the death penalty.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the District Attorney’s office presented enough evidence and arguments at trial regarding his claims that he was intellectually disabled and mentally ill.
“Upon our review of the record and upon our consideration of Brookins’s arguments regarding his alleged ‘mental retardation’ and ‘mental illness,’ we conclude that the evidence presented in the guilt/innocence phase was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Brookins was guilty of the charges of which he was convicted and to decline to find that he was ‘mentally retarded’ or ‘mentally ill,’” Justice Charlie Bethel writes in Tuesday’s opinion.
In his appeal, Brookins also calls attention to what he feels are multiple errors that he believes the trial court made. Brookins says those errors kept him from getting a fair trial. The Supreme Court has rejected his claims of errors in the trial.
The conclusion of Justice Bethel is that Brookins death penalty sentence will remain.
