A surprise mugshot on the Cochise County jail list last week prompted rumors that a man recently sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to reckless endangerment in a fatal 2020 head-on crash was in new legal trouble.
Instead, Adam Shane Brown voluntarily presented himself to the jail Aug. 4 to finish off a 180-day term of incarceration that had been inadvertently cut short due to errors in the May 3 sentencing order and two amended orders issued by Judge John F. Kelliher, Jr.
Those errors resulted in the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office releasing Brown three weeks early on June 12 instead of July 3. Court records show jail staff had no reason to know the sentencing paperwork was incorrect.
Brown, 27, pleaded guilty to three counts of reckless endangerment for attempting to pass another vehicle in a no-passing zone of State Route 80 near the Mule Pass Tunnel in Bisbee. He could not maneuver the heavy-duty work truck back into the correct lane before crashing head-on with a Toyota Pruis, which then flipped multiple times.
Benjamin Saffer, the Toyota driver, died at the scene. Remarkably, a passenger riding in the car did not sustain serious injuries but she witnessed Saffer die.
A plea deal offered by the Cochise County Attorney’s Office with input from the surviving victim and Staffer’s family called for Brown to serve 180 days in the Cochise County jail, followed by three years of intensive supervised probation.
The judge was to include in the sentencing order that Brown receive credit for 121 days of time already served upon his initial arrest. But the jail term was left off the initial sentencing, and an amended order issued in June inexplicably referred to a 120-day jail term with credit for only 80 days.
When the error was finally realized last month, Brown was already back home in Maricopa County in compliance with conditions of probation. His defense attorney, Sara Dent, had to obtain yet another order from Kelliher instructing the Cochise County jail to accept Brown back into custody as a self-surrender.
Which is what Brown did last week. He will be released Aug. 23 and then return to supervised probation.
The plea deal also required Kelliher to dismiss a negligent homicide charge and a manslaughter charge which carried a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Brown’s three convictions are all undesignated Class 6 felonies, meaning he can petition the court to designate the charges as misdemeanors if he successfully completes probation.
In addition to jail time and probation, Brown agreed to reimburse the Cochise County Victim Compensation Fund for more than $5,700 and to pay one of the victims $3,835.
A civil lawsuit filed by the surviving Toyota passenger against Brown and his employer, Southwest Valley Constructors, is expected to pick up pace now that the criminal case is resolved.