Trial Attorney's 20 Year History of Disciplinary Issues

Lead trial counsel’s representation of Vern, trial counsel’s license to practice law had already been suspended once and at the time of trial he was actually on probation for a second time due to disciplinary / competency related issues.

Trial counsel was ultimately disbarred several years after Vern's trial.[1] (Download official records at the bottom of the page).

Although the disbarment was not due to specific infractions from his representation of Vern, courts reviewing his case however, found that trial counsel’s performance was deficient in multiple instances during Vern’s trial,[2] including failing to interview and present the only witness with first hand knowledge regarding the defense’s theory at trial even though counsel was alerted to this witnesses’ existence and the critical knowledge the witness possessed.

The subsequently disbarred attorney was also found to be deficient in allowing the most damaging assertions and “highly inappropriate” comments by the trial prosecutors to go unchallenged because trial counsel didn’t even know that the prosecutor’s gross misconduct throughout trial constituted prosecutorial misconduct.

Ironically, trial counsel would have obtained credible documentary evidence to rebut the prosecutorial misconduct had he done his due diligence.[3]

Vern was found guilty of the lesser included offense of 2nd degree murder in spite of being represented by trial counsel whom by the time of his disbarment, had a well documented 20 year disciplinary history that at times required treatment for psychiatric and/or drug addiction issues and included professional misconduct and ethical violations of the type that were also present during his representation of Vern.

[1] See Notice of Disbarment and other disciplinary actions such as multiple petitions for discipline and public notices from 1992 through 2012 by the Tennessee BPR taken against Javier Bailey, Bar # 14186 www.tbpr.org "Attorney Search"

[2] Excerpt Braswell v. State 2018 WL 1719443 at *48 (“Trial counsel, however, …”) and at *53 (“The post-conviction court found that the prosecutor’s statements …”)

[3] See Suppressed Letters between Vern and wife Shelia Braswell (Prosecutor strongly inferred to the jury that when Defendant gets angry he chokes people, these letters between the Braswells that were suppressed by the State would have rebutted that assertion. They show that defendant had a constructive and therapeutic way of dealing with conflict and anger between he and his wife. The letters were referenced in the Police Supplements, therefore had disbarred trial counsel motioned to get the letters, one of which constituted a statement of the defendant, he would have had them for rebuttal at trial).