Oscar Brown, the trigger man in a 2013 east side slaying, beat first-degree murder charges last week, escaping what could have been a life sentence.

After deliberating a little more than three hours, the Springfield jury rejected murder charges and instead found Brown guilty of involuntary manslaughter, which typically carries a sentence of between two and five years. Brown had claimed self defense and asserted that he’d prevailed in a gunfight with the late Charles Rice, whom he said was armed with a gun that police never found. In addition to rejecting murder charges, the jury acquitted Brown of battery with a firearm, a charge that stemmed from the wounding of a second man during the incident.

Brown’s escape from murder charges came after Sangamon County Associate Judge Rudolph Braud threw out testimony from a state’s witness who had testified about blood found in her home. On the stand, the witness said that she saw Richard Lawuary, a Brown accomplice who had purportedly gotten a gun away from Rice, get a finger jammed in a door at her home, which could have explained the presence of blood that was pertinent to the case. Defense attorney James Elmore hadn’t heard such an account until the woman took the stand.

“For the first time, I hear (someone) saying ‘I saw Richard Lawuary jam his finger there,’” Elmore recalled. “She said ‘I told Mr. Shaw this about a week ago.’” Braud ordered the jury to disregard the woman’s testimony on the grounds that Sangamon County assistant state’s attorney Brian Shaw had not told the defense what the woman would say on the stand.

“I respect the decision of the jury, I disagree with certain rulings made by the court,” Sangamon County state’s attorney John Milhiser said. “In every case, we comply with discovery rules and notify the defense of all evidence as required, and this case was no different.”

Brown remains in custody on charges of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and being an armed habitual criminal, both of which stem from the shooting.

Lawuary is also in legal limbo. In 2014, he pleaded guilty in mid-trial to two counts of obstructing justice and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon and received a 12-year sentence. However, he has successfully argued that he should be allowed to withdraw his plea because his lawyer wasn’t effective and he wasn’t aware that the sentence would run consecutively, instead of concurrently, with a sentence for aggravated battery in an unrelated case that brought him a 6 ½ year sentence.

G. Ronald Kesinger, Lawuary’s lawyer in the case involving Brown, was suspended indefinitely earlier this year by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which says that he borrowed money inappropriately from a client and bought a different client’s home out of foreclosure without the client’s knowledge. Kesinger served a six-month suspension in 2013 for sharing confidential information in a shooting, which resulted in a client being convicted of murder. In allowing Lawuary to withdraw his plea, Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Leslie Graves last month said that Kesinger had been ineffective, and she also took some blame herself, saying that she had had not properly warned the defendant of potential consequences when she accepted his guilty plea two years ago.

The Brown murder trial marked the second time in less than a year that Shaw has been accused of not complying with requirements that prosecutors promptly notify defense attorneys about evidence or testimony that has bearing on cases. Last December, Lindsay Evans, attorney for Billy Poe, moved to withdraw her client’s guilty plea in a drug case on the grounds that she hadn’t been properly alerted when a Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy gave conflicting accounts about a straw found in a bag of heroin.

The straw wasn’t mentioned in initial police reports. It became an issue after the bag of drugs was returned from the state crime lab with the straw inside. Deputy Darric Miller told prosecutors outside the courtroom that he thought that the straw had been found in a vehicle cup holder; on the stand, however, Miller testified that Poe, who was charged with dealing drugs, was in direct possession of the straw when police found it. After Miller’s testimony, prosecutors offered Poe a deal, and he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of drug possession and was given probation.

After the guilty plea, Evans filed a motion requesting that the plea be withdrawn on the grounds that Shaw and assistant state’s attorney Andrew Affrunti had not promptly notified her that Miller’s story had changed and that she got an accurate accounting only after the guilty plea. The prosecutors denied doing anything improper, writing in response to Evans’ motion that they had promptly told the defense attorney about the straw and that Miller hadn’t told prosecutors that the straw had been found on Poe’s person before he said so during testimony.

There hasn’t been a ruling on whether prosecutors acted properly because Poe didn’t show up for hearings and Evans could not locate him.

Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].