What happened to Levon Brooks, one of the featured subjects in The Innocence Files? The nine-part Netflix docies explores the American criminal justice system, and the factors that led to various individuals being wrongfully convicted of crimes and then exonerated years later.
In January 1992, Brooks was sentenced to prison for the 1990 murder of three-year-old Courtney Smith. Investigators first questioned him based on information provided by the victim's six-year-old sister, most notably that a mystery man had been wearing a "quarter" in his ear, similar to an earring worn by the main suspect. In court, Dr. Michael West testified that bite marks were forensically connected to Brooks. The Innocence Files documents Brooks' relationship with The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld.
The Innocence Files reveals that Brooks was exonerated in 2008 after spending 16 years in prison and that his case is directed connected to Kennedy Brewer - a fellow Brooksville, Mississippi native who was wrongfully convicted of killing a young girl. In 2008, DNA evidence led investigators to Justin Albert Johnson, who ultimately claimed responsibility for both of the murders. And so Brooks and Brewer were released together soon after. In the Netflix docies, both men speak extensively about their experiences in and out of jail and how West's bite mark testimony influenced the jurors in their respective cases.
The Innocence Files reveals that Brooks ed away on January 26, 2018 from colon cancer. In the third episode, Neufeld visits his former client in Mississippi upon learning about his health issues. Brooks speaks on camera about roosters that lay green and blue eggs and also comments about his love for art. After being released from prison, Brooks received $50,000 annually for 10 years - a modest amount given what he experienced - and then ed away at the age of 58. His gravestone includes the nickname "T-Tot." Brooks' father and aunt appear at his funeral in The Innocence Files along with Brewer.
The Netflix docies opens with the Brooks and Brewer cases because they changed beliefs about the reliability of bite mark evidence. In 1992, the founders of The Innocence Project knew that DNA testing would be important for their investigations moving forward and certainly would be more reliable than West's unorthodox bite mark techniques. Ultimately, it was a semen test that cleared Brewer and led to Brooks being exonerated several years later. When Brooks ed away in 2008, The Washington Post's Radley Balko wrote a moving obituary about his experiences with The Innocence Files subject and states that "Levon Brooks’s life was unfair — incredibly, cruelly, unspeakably unfair. Somehow, against all odds, he still found joy in it." That optimistic spirit shines through in The Innocence Files.