Man who ambushed Baton Rouge cop in 1993 resentenced

BATON ROUGE, La. -- A man convicted of killing a Baton Rouge police officer in 1993 and initially sentenced to death now faces life in prison, reports CBS affiliate WAFB.

Kevan Brumfield was convicted in 1995 of the shooting death of Cpl. Betty Smothers during a failed robbery two years earlier. Smothers was driving a grocery store manager to make a bank deposit, part of an off-duty security job, when she was ambushed.

Brumfield was resentenced to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court refused earlier this month to consider a request to reinstate the death sentence originally handed down by a trial jury. An appeals court determined Brumfield was too intellectually disabled to be executed, agreeing with a federal judge who ruled that Brumfield had a below-average IQ and an intellectual capacity of a middle-school student.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional. Based on the decision, Brumfield asked for a hearing to spare him from execution.

Smothers was the mother of six children, including former NFL running back Warrick Dunn.

Brumfield's resentencing comes just days after two Baton Rouge police officers and an East Baton Rouge deputy were killed in an ambush that left three others wounded and the gunman dead.

At the sentencing Wednesday, Dunn said he was disgusted and ashamed with Brumfield's new sentence, according to The Advocate.

"The system is what it is. That's horrible. I do not believe in the justice system because this is not justice," he said inside the courtroom, The Advocate reported.