Josh Brent could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for his conviction of intoxication manslaughter in the driving death of his Dallas Cowboys teammate and close friend, Jerry Brown. But he was sentenced Friday to 180 days in prison and 10 years probation in Texas on Friday.
Brent was convicted Wednesday of the December 2012 crash on a suburban Dallas highway that killed Brown, who was a passenger in Brent’s car. Blood tests pegged Brent’s blood alcohol content at 0.18 percent, which is more than twice the state’s legal limit of 0.08 percent. Prosecutors told jurors that the 320-pound Brent had as many as 17 drinks on the night of the crash.
George Milner, one of Brent’s attorneys, argued that Brent wasn’t drunk and was only “guilty of being stupid behind the wheel of a car.” He contended that Brent couldn’t have had nearly as much to drink as prosecutors said, and that the police blood tests were flawed.
Brent and Brown were headed home from a night of partying when Brent lost control of his Mercedes and crashed. Officers who arrived on the scene saw Brent trying to pull Brown’s body from the wreckage.
Brown’s mother, Stacey Jackson, has publicly forgiven Brent. When asked Thursday if she holds Brent responsible for her son’s death, she said: “He’s still responsible, but you can’t go on in life holding a grudge. We all make mistakes.”
Prosecutors pushed for prison time for Brent, who went to trial only weeks after another Texas intoxication manslaughter case sparked widespread public outrage. In that case, a defense expert argued that the defendant, a 17-year-old male who caused a drunken crash that killed four people, deserved leniency because his parents coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility — a condition the expert termed “affluenza.” The teen did not receive any prison time.
On Thursday, prosecutor Rebecca Dodds emphasized Brent’s 2009 drunken driving arrest in Illinois to press the state’s argument that he deserves prison time. In that case, he served 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
“Probation doesn’t work for Josh Brent,” Dodds told the jury during closing statements in the punishment phase.
Brent’s attorneys pushed their case for probation Thursday, calling a Dallas County official who testified that the county currently has 34 intoxication manslaughter cases that resulted in probation.
