Roger Alan Brown

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Roger A. Brown, who prosecuted a number of high-profile cases during his more than two-decade career with the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, died Wednesday. He was 70.

Officials at the law firm of Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, LLC in Birmingham, which Brown joined six years ago, issued a statement this morning.

"Everyone at Haskell Slaughter is saddened by the passing of Roger Brown," Scott Williams, partner of the firm and Chair of Haskell Slaughter's Marketing Committee wrote in a prepared statement. "He was a splendid lawyer and better person. We were fortunate that Roger chose to practice law at our law firm after his retirement from public service. Our deepest sympathies are extended to his wife, family and friends."

Brown joined the firm in June 2007 after having retiring Dec. 31, 2004 from the district attorney's office after more than 20 years in that office, including 17 years as the chief deputy.

Brown actually served two stints with the district attorney's office. The first was from January 1971 to May of 1974, said David Barber, who also came to work in that office in the early 70s and served as the Jefferson County District Attorney from 1984 until Sept. 2008.

Brown came back to the office in October 1986 and when the former chief deputy left about a year or so later, Barber said he placed Brown in that position where he served until his retirement on Dec. 31, 2004.

"I was quick to seize that opportunity to bring him back in," Barber said.

Brown was "a great mentor" for younger prosecutors and he often would try big cases with them so they could get the experience without having all the pressure on them, Barber said.

Barber said when he came into the office in the early 1970s Brown was already there handling trial work in big cases. "I learned a lot from him," he said,

Among the cases Brown prosecuted during his career with the district attorney's office included that of Jessica McCord and her husband, former Pelham police officer Jeff McCord, who were convicted of murder in the Feb. 15, 2002 slayings of Ms. McCord's ex-husband and his wife, Alan and Terra Bates, in a dispute over visitation rights with their daughters.

Brown prosecuted registered nurse Joseph Dewey Akin in the 1991 death of a patient at Cooper Green Hospital. Akin had also been investigated by Georgia authorities in the deaths of patients at Atlanta area hospitals, but was never charged. After two trials in Jefferson County, Akin pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge in January 1998 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Brown was involved in the successful prosecution of three skinheads in the 1992 death of a black homeless man in downtown Birmingham. Brown also was involved in the prosecution of former Birmingham Police Chief Arthur Deutcsh on a charge related to tampering with arrest records involving an arrest of a daughter of former Mayor Richard Arrington. Deutcsh's case was ultimately dismissed by a judge who declared Deutcsh was incompetent to stand trial.

"My daddy taught me, if you keep your mouth shut you can't say something that you may later regret," Brown had told a reporter after the judge's decision in the Deutsch case.

Brown was named in 2011 as chair of Haskell Slaughter's Litigation Practice Group. His focus at the firm, among other things was in defending corporate and individual clients in white-collar crime.

Brown, according his resume provided by Haskell Slaughter, in the past has served as a member of the Alabama Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules of Criminal Procedure and past service as a member of the Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions - Criminal, a member of the Alabama State Bar Task Force on Correctional Institutions and Procedures, and as two-time chair of the Birmingham Bar Association's Criminal Procedure Committee.

Birmingham Bar Association Executive Director Bo Landrum said that Brown was a long time member of the bar and active its continuing legal education programs. "He made great contributions to the work that we do," he said.

Most recently Brown moderated the bar's May 10 continuing legal education program entitled "Preparation and delivery of convincing opening statements and effective and persuasive closing arguments."

Barber said Brown was great at closing arguments.

Barber said one time he and Brown were at the Justice Department's National Advocacy Center, a legal training center at the University of South Carolina where Brown was participating in a program. At the time, Barber said he was with an official at the center when that official got a phone call from the program director saying he had just heard the best closing argument he had ever heard at one of their mock trials. It was from Brown.

"That was quite a compliment," Barber said.

Brown had served as a visiting professor at Cumberland School of Law of Samford University and for many years served as an adjunct faculty member there. In 2007, he was named to the Birmingham Business Journal's Best of the Bar for White-Collar Crime, according to his resume.

Brown served for more than 20 years as a Lay Minister at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church and was president of the Holy Name Society at Our Lady of Sorrows, according to his resume. A former president of the Birmingham Touchdown Club and its foundation, he coached baseball, basketball and softball in Vestavia Hills, Alabama youth athletic programs for over ten years, according to the resume.

A graduate of Samford University in 1965, Brown earned his law degree from Cumberland School of Law in 1970.

The family will receive friends today from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Ridout's Valley Chapel in Homewood, according to Brown's obituary. A funeral service will be Friday at 1 p.m. at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church