Grady Nelson, a 53-year-old capital murder defendant whose past traumatic brain injury became a key mitigating circumstance during the penalty phase of his trial, will not have to face lethal injection on Florida’s death row.
The legal efforts of two University of Miami School of Law students have helped him avoid the death house.
As part of a new project that allows students to work closely with capital defense lawyers and, in some cases, argue before judges, Keon Hardemon and Paul Petrequin assisted Nelson’s team of lawyers in successfully securing a recommendation of life in prison.
After only an hour of deliberation in a Miami courtroom, jurors sided with Nelson’s defense team, which included attorneys Terry Lenamon, David S. Markus, and student supervisor and assistant professor Sarah Mourer, who entered the case pro bono as co-counsel.
The students conducted extensive research to assist in submitting QEEG [quantitative electroencephalography]—a three-dimensional brain image also known as brain mapping used to indicate traumatic brain injury. Lenamon says it’s the first time QEEG has been used in a death penalty case, and he believes it was the first time the technology was used in a Florida criminal case.
