An eight-time convicted felon received a life prison sentence on Tuesday for trafficking 20 pounds of marijuana through Houston County.
Houston County Circuit Court Judge Butch Binford gave 42-year-old Ramon Demetrius Brown the life prison sentence for a felony trafficking marijuana charge. A jury found Brown guilty last month of the class A felony drug trafficking charge.
But Binford said he did not necessarily believe Brown would be rehabilitated.
“I don’t believe for a minute you were in any type of serious automobile business,” Binford said. “I think you have a lack of respect of law enforcement, and a lack of respect for the legal system. People like you need to be in the penitentiary, and I hope you stay in there a long time.”
Houston County District Attorney Doug Valeska asked the court to sentence Brown to life in prison without the opportunity for parole.
Valeska said Brown faced a life in prison sentence or a life in prison without parole sentence because of eight prior felony convictions on his records. He also said Brown was already released from prison once early after only serving a year and a half of a 110-year prison sentence.
“He got caught trafficking 20 pounds of marijuana,” Valeska said. “Our number one problem in this community is drugs.”
Valeska said Brown has also served time in federal prison for felony drug charges.
Valeska read a letter to the court from Dothan City School Board Chairman Harry Wayne Parrish, asking the court to consider the lesser sentence for Brown. The letter said Parrish formerly coached Brown in football at Northview High School.
Alabama state troopers arrested Brown during a driver’s license checkpoint on Judge Logue Road near Wicksburg on Feb. 26, 2011.
Brown’s father Charles Williams, who retired from the Dothan Police Department as a sergeant, said he believed his son could change his life.
Attorney Tom Brantley, who represented Brown in court, said his client had no violent criminal history. Brantley also said it had been nearly 20 years since his client’s last felony conviction.
“This is not a situation where this man needs to die in prison,” Brantley said. “He wanted to go straight. He’d got into the car business.”
Brantley said at trial his client had worked in car sales and repossessions, and had only just repossessed the vehicle with the drugs inside it.
“He can be rehabilitated. I think he can come back a changed man,” Brantley said. “He obviously associated himself too often with the wrong kind of people, but he also associates himself with good people like Harry Wayne Parrish.”
