Teen driver improperly prosecuted as an adult, lawyers say

Wesley Brown was 15 when he drove his “dream car” — a shiny new, but stolen Ford Mustang — up to 117 mph as Boca Raton police cars with lights and sirens trailed behind.

The Deerfield Beach teen’s late-night ride on Nov. 1, 2015, ended when he ran a red light and crashed into a Honda Pilot, killing a 46-year-old mother of two.

after his arrest, Brown’s criminal case landed in adult court. And it stayed there throughout the prosecution, two trials and his sentencing to 20 years in state prison for convictions on vehicular homicide and fleeing and eluding charges. Brown

Brown’s lawyers argue in an appeal that the case should have been handled all along in juvenile court, where the maximum possible punishment is six years.

They also claim they messed up by not objecting sooner to Brown’s prosecution as an adult for the death of Wendy Harris-Aceves.

But attorneys for the state contend prosecutors are permitted under state law to file a case against a child of 15 in adult court when they decide it’s in the “pubRight lic interest,” and the charge is murder or manslaughter. They point out vehicular homicide applies, in this case.

The state also argues that the Brown defense waived any objection to adult court by proceeding to trial, where prosecutors say the teen was found guilty as charged and sentenced appropriately.

So it’s up to the state’s Fourth District Court of Appeal to decide whether Brown, 18, should get a fresh chance in juvenile court. A panel of three appellate judges will hear arguments Sept. 11 from both sides.

Judy Harris says she plans to be there. The victim’s mother, who lives in Pompano Beach, says Brown’s actions devastated her family and he doesn’t deserve any breaks.

“This hasn’t gone away for us, and it will never go away,” Harris told the South Florida Sun SenNow,

tinel. “He took away a mother, a wife and a daughter. She was the heart of the family. It was a major loss — for a joy ride.”

The prosecution

The tragic night began when the rented 2016 Mustang was stolen at gunpoint from a valet at the Addison Event Center at 2 E. Camino Real in Boca Raton, according to police. Brown, however, was not accused of being the thief.

Hours after the car theft, Brown saw the sporty silver convertible coasting on his neighborhood street, and he said he asked the driver, an older acquaintance named Jacquan Strowbridge, if he could get behind the wheel. He didn’t have a learner’s permit, though.

Brown, who insisted he didn’t know the car was stolen, drove them to a gas station on Northwest Second Avenue, north of Glades Road, where he met a friend who owed him some cash.

At the station, Brown got the money and put air in a tire. But it was then, at

11:20 p.m., that a police officer noticed the car and confirmed it had been stolen and turned on his cruiser’s lights and siren.

Brown then pushed the pedal down in the 30 mph speed zone. Soon a second police car arrived to help.

At this point, testified Brown, Strowbridge issued a death threat.

“I’m thinking, he has a gun right now, so if I stop the car, or pull over or jump out, he’ll try to shoot me or something like that,” Brown said of Strowbridge’s orders to drive fast and get away from the police.

At the time, Strowbridge, 20, was on probation for convictions for armed kidnapping and robbery with a deadly weapon, records show.

“The car just took off,” Brown said.

He also testified he started to have difficulty breathing and took his hands off the steering wheel to look for an inhaler, prescribed to treat asthma. He said he then “blacked out.”

Harris-Aceves was driving east on Palmetto Park Road, on her way to pick up her daughter from a school dance. The Mustang slammed into the victim’s Honda at 95 mph at

11:22 p.m., according to investigators.

Harris-Aceves was thrown from the vehicle and died instantly. The impact of the crash fractured Harris-Aceves’ skull, tore her brain, fractured her neck, broke her pelvis and more, said the medical examiner.

Brown’s first trial ended in a hung jury; a retrial resulted in a guilty verdict.

Sentencing and appeal

At Brown’s sentencing hearing, Public Defender Carey Haughwout asked Circuit Judge Charles Burton to toss the conviction and send the case to juvenile court.

She argued that the law doesn’t allow juveniles to be charged with vehicular homicide in adult court. But Burton ruled that she had already waived any objection by going to trial, and noted, “I’m sure that’s something the appellate court will deal with.”

The judge also said Brown was not entitled to lenient punishment as a “youthful offender” because of his previous juvenile record and the recklessness that caused a deadly crash.

By fleeing the traffic stop Brown “made a choice to try and outrun the police, essentially driving a 3,500-pound bomb at speeds of more than 100 miles an hour through the city of Boca Raton … and of course we know Wendy Harris paid the ultimate price for those choices by getting ejected out of her vehicle and suffering a violent death,” Burton said.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Georgina Jimenez-Orosa used a transcript of Burton’s comments from the bench in a filing with the appeals court.

Brown “was not entitled to ‘juvenile sanctions’ for the mere fact that (he) was 15 years old at the time he committed the homicide,” she explained.

In the appeal, Assistant Public Defender Virginia Murphy wrote that putting Brown’s case in adult court left him stuck in a “system that is predicated on punishment rather than rehabilitation, and a substantially harsher sentence for a much longer period of time.”

But Judy Harris, the victim’s mother, said it’s not as though Brown had made one mistake and deserved a second chance. She said by the time he killed her daughter, Brown had already pleaded guilty to numerous offenses in Broward County, including burglary, robbery and grand theft auto.

“His record is ridiculous,” Harris said.

The family expected Brown’s appeal and hopes the court will reject it.

“Who knows how many other times we will have to deal with this?” she said. “It’s tough.”