Jordan Brown

The Jordan Brown case involves Jordan Brown (born August 7, 1997), who at age 11 was initially charged as an adult in the fatal shooting of his father's fiancée, Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, in New Beaver, Pennsylvania, on February 20, 2009. The county District Attorney's Office initially filed the charges in adult court because that is required in Pennsylvania homicide cases regardless of a defendant's age. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office subsequently took over prosecution of the case. After Brown spent more than three years in a juvenile detention facility in Erie, Pennsylvania, while Pennsylvania courts deliberated his status, Brown was tried as a juvenile and adjudicated delinquent (guilty) on April 13, 2012. On May 8, 2013, Superior Court vacated the finding of delinquency, citing "palpable abuse of discretion". Jordan was supposed to have a life sentence without parole because of the incident but instead faced a long time in the juvenile detention center because he was only 11.