USA - Ohio. After spending nearly 4 years on death row, Vernon "Broadway" Brown, 35, black, will be spared the death penalty.

After spending nearly 4 years on death row, Vernon "Broadway" Brown, 35, black,  will be spared the death penalty. A Cuyahoga County jury acquitted Brown of 2 counts of aggravated murder today in a retrial. Jurors opted to convict him of lesser included counts of murder in connection with the Jan. 1, 2004 shooting deaths of Duane Roan, 28, and Tearle Toeran, 24. A jury sent Brown to death row in 2005 for the killings, but the Ohio Supreme Court unanimausly, on Oct. 3, 2008, overturned the verdicts, saying prosecutors failed to turn over exculpatory police reports that someone else confessed to the crime, as well as counsel failed to make the appropriate motions that may have precluded the State from presenting a crucial witness. His new trial began last Monday in Common Pleas Court. Brown's lawyers conceded that their client killed the 2 men. But they disagreed with prosecutors on why. Prosecutors said Brown was a drug dealer who executed Roan and Toeran to make a name for himself on the streets. Brown's lawyers said he fired his gun to defend himself during a shootout. Brown will be sentenced on the 17th by Judge Jose Villanueva.