Nearly three years after Christopher Brown was convicted in a fatal Glen Oaks shooting, jurors acquitted the defendant of all charges in a retrial that concluded June 11.
Brown, 25, was previously found guilty of first-degree murder, firearm use in a violent crime, having a handgun on his person, and possessing an illegal firearm as a minor. He was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 15 years.
Brown and his friend, 26-year-old Daran Horton, were accused of shooting 31-year-old Cordelle Bruce multiple times after a drug deal gone wrong on the 1100 block of E. Belvedere Avenue.
A witness described a man wearing a blue-and-grey hoodie fleeing the scene. Investigators later recovered footage that showed a suspect they believed to be Brown wearing a similar blue-and-grey hoodie and fur boots. However, the two witnesses in the trial were both unable to fully identify the two perpetrators.
In an Aug. 21, 2025 unreported opinion, the Appellate Court of Maryland found that the court allowed a prejudicial statement by Brown’s co-defendant Horton during the pair’s initial joint trial. The Appellate Court consequently overturned Brown’s conviction, ruling jurors could have been unfairly influenced by Horton’s statement.
“I am innocent and I’m not going to stop fighting until I prove my innocence,” Brown said prior to his sentencing in 2023.
Jurors reached their verdict on June 12, one day after counsel rested their cases before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence R. Daniels, and acquitted Brown of his previous convictions. Two of his previous charges that initially had no verdict, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and second-degree murder, have been amended to not guilty as well.
