By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
A four-day trial that had been scheduled to begin Tuesday was cancelled after one of the two murder defendants agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge.
Devin Pierce, now 25, and Serenity Brown, now 22, were accused of causing the death of a 19-month-old child. The child had been left in the couple’s care March 27, 2021, when emergency personnel responded to a call about an unresponsive child, who was transported to T.J. Samson Community Hospital and later pronounced deceased. An autopsy was performed after detectives observed “suspicious bruising” on the child’s head.
“The results of the autopsy determined the child died from blunt impact injuries of the head, and the manner of death was ruled homicide,” according to a press release from the Barren County Sheriff’s Office at the time.
On May 18 the following year, a Barren County grand jury handed down indictments charging Pierce and Brown with murder. Two other people, Jessica Brown and Marty Brown, were charged with tampering with physical evidence, that press release stated. Prosecution of the latter two cases has been delayed, pending the outcome of Pierce’s and Brown’s cases.
On Tuesday, Pierce entered a plea of guilty to second-degree manslaughter, a Class C felony that carries a sentencing range of five to 10 years. In exchange for his plea, the commonwealth agreed to recommend a sentence of seven years.
A verdict of guilty on the wanton murder charge would have carried a sentence of 20 to 50 years or life in prison.
Gardner pointed out to Glasgow News 1 just prior to the proceeding that the law had changed in the time since the child’s death and now would require that a person in this situation serve 85 percent of the sentence before parole eligibility rather than the 20 percent required by the law in 2021. He added that there is a case precedent that indicates the law that was in effect at the time of an offense is the one that would be observed in this matter.
Circuit Judge John T. Alexander had explained to Pierce that he would be giving up certain rights by entering such a plea – the right to have a trial and to appeal its outcome, for example – and asked the standard questions such as whether he’d had the opportunity to go over the documents with his attorney and understood them, whether anyone was pressuring him into making the decision against his will, and whether he was under the influence of any substances or his judgement was impaired for any other reason.
Alexander reviewed the terms of the agreement with Pierce, including the recommended sentence, a fine and court costs.
“The seven-year sentence would be subject to the following: No. 1, everybody agrees that your all’s discussion has, in part, revolved around the fact that you expect parole eligibility to be controlled by the law as it existed at the time of the offense, as opposed to the way that they amended that some three or so years after the offense date. So that would mean that you would be eligible to be considered for parole after serving 20 percent of your sentence,” the judge said. “That is – I guess the way to put it would be – a material factor in the decision that’s being made.”
Alexander said that he would memorialize that expectation in the record, but, if that were to be ignored and the parole eligibility were to be calculated with some different percentage, Pierce would have 60 days to get a motion filed asking for his plea to be vacated (reversed). The judge said it was his understanding that the commonwealth would not oppose that motion if it should occur, and Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner agreed that was correct.
The judge told Pierce that if a trial for him were to occur later under that circumstance, the fact that he had entered this plea at this point would not be held against him. The judge also said that if Pierce asked for shock probation, the commonwealth had made it clear it would oppose that.
Pierce’s attorney, David Broderick, told the judge that one thing not included in the plea-agreement document is that he and Gardner had calculated Pierce’s time already served, both physically and with an ankle monitor, and he believes it totals 700 days, which is just 30 days shy of two years. Gardner said that is his understanding of the count, though the final calculation is to be done by the Department of Corrections and would be included in the presentence investigation report.
Time served is included in the final sentence amount, so if he gets credit for serving 700 days, he already will have served more than 20 percent of the seven years, which is 1.4 years.
Alexander told Pierce that while the commonwealth recommendation includes the standard fine, it has been his practice to observe the statutory requirement that if someone serves actual time on their sentence that they get credit toward that fine or court costs.
Broderick said they did not wish to waive having a final sentencing for Pierce, so it was then scheduled for May 19. He remains free on bond until the final sentencing, provided he continues to meet the requirements of the bond.
A brief pretrial conference subsequently took place for Brown’s case, with another such conference scheduled for late July.
Gardner had requested having it “a month or so” after Pierce’s final sentencing, noting that he and Brown’s attorney, Ken Garrett, had reached “an agreement in principle, but it was “contingent upon certain things happening.”
Alexander asked whether, because Pierce would have the opportunity to retract his plea should the Department of Corrections classify his case differently than anticipated, in terms of when he’s eligible for parole, it would make more sense to wait until that 60-day window had closed, and Gardner agreed.
The new pretrial conference for Brown was then set for July 28.
“This is obviously a very difficult case for everybody involved,” Gardner told members of the news media following the proceeding. “This agreement was reached after careful consideration with the mother of the child and also the lead investigator in this case, detective Adam Bow.”
He said that, had the case gone to trial, each side had a “significant risk” of not getting their desired outcome. A verdict of not guilty would mean no justice for the child and the defendants could be facing life in prison had they been found guilty.
He said that discussions with the defense attorney regarding a possible agreement had resumed the week of March 3, which was the date of the last pretrial conference, and he contacted the child’s mother.
“After going over those risks with the mother of the child in this case, we decided to offer an agreement of manslaughter, second [degree], at seven years and the terms that you heard in the court. And again, the mother fully agreed with that and also the lead detective as well, to ensure that there was some justice for the child,” Gardner said.
He added that if the case had gone to trial, the defendants also would have been entitled to ask the jury to consider lesser charges of second-degree manslaughter or reckless homicide.
Gardner said he had made a plea-agreement offer earlier in the case, and the case had gone through a mediation process in early 2024 as well in an effort to reach a resolution, but none was reached. Glasgow News 1 asked how different the current agreement was from those possibilities, and Gardner said it was not significantly different.
The prosecutor also explained that Pierce and Brown were romantically involved with one another at the time the child was left in their care. Pierce had come to know the child’s mother through a childhood friendship that a relative of his had with her, and he had become a longtime friend of the child’s mother as well.
After the proceeding, Gardner also confirmed that the tentative agreement for Brown’s case is contingent on what happens with Pierce’s plea, which is contingent on how the DOC classifies the case, so he could not yet finalize the agreement with her until he knows Pierce’s plea will not be withdrawn.
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