Jordan Brown seeks release while awaiting court decision
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Attorneys for a Lawrence County boy charged with killing his father's pregnant fiancee when he was 11 want him released from a detention center while the Pennsylvania Superior Court decides an appeal by three newspapers to have his trial opened to the public.
Jordan Brown, who is now 14 and has been in the Edmund L. Thomas Adolescent Detention Center in Erie for three years, should be immediately released because he has been detained long without a juvenile trial, his attorneys wrote in a petition filed with the Superior Court earlier last week.
Jordan's delinquency hearing had been scheduled in September but was delayed by appeals filed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the New Castle News. A three-judge panel heard arguments on behalf of the newspapers last week but could take weeks or months to decide whether Jordan's trial should be open to the public.
A Lawrence County judge in October denied Jordan's release, which prompted his attorneys to appeal, the petition says.
Jordan had been charged as an adult with February 2009 killings of Kenzie Houk, 26, and her unborn child in their New Beaver farmhouse until a judge decided his case should be handled in juvenile court, which would keep it out of public view unless the Superior Court grants the newspapers' appeals.
First Published January 20, 2012 12:00 am
