By Courtney Dentch
A defense attorney who represented a man convicted of killing a 32-year-old construction worker in St. Albans in 1994 testified last week he did not know about his client’s potential alibi until the trial had begun.
Michael Mays, a Jamaica lawyer who represented Samuel Brownridge in his unsuccessful murder trial in 1995, took the stand last Thursday at a hearing in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens to decide whether to retry Brownridge’s case.
Samuel Brownridge, 28, eight years into a prison sentence of 25 years to life for the murder of Darryle Adams, testified last month that Mays did not follow up on alibi information that he gave early in the judicial process.
Brownridge, who was living with his girlfriend in Queens Village, was convicted in 1995 of shooting Adams in the back of the head as he begged for his life at the corner of Mexico Street and Quencer Road in St. Albans about 9 p.m. March 7, 1994.
But Brownridge and his family say he was home at the time of the shooting, and the jury that convicted him did not get to hear testimony on the alibi, Brownridge said Monday.
Brownridge told his attorney that his girlfriend, her aunt, his mother and another person could vouch for his whereabouts, but Mays never followed up on the leads, he said. But Mays testified that he did was not given the alibi information until after the trial started, Mays said.
“There was never any conclusion reached that there was an alibi defense,” Mays told the court last week. “The information before the trial didn’t give me a reason to file a notice of alibi.”
The alibi was not included in Brownridge’s trial because Mays failed to give notice it would be used, said Jason Russo, who is now representing Brownridge.
