5 Browns Dad Appeal Denied

A judge in the Utah Court of Appeals has denied a motion for a misplea by the father of piano group The 5 Browns.

Keith Brown pleaded guilty in February 2011 to charges that he sexually abused his three daughters when they were children.

He’s appealed to set aside his guilty pleas to one count of sodomy on a child and two counts of sexual abuse on a child in the time since.

An attorney for Brown told the Daily Herald of Provo his client was not in the right physical or mental state to understand the deal he’d agreed to, noting Brown had been in a car accident and was heavily medicated when he appeared in court.

“The drugs put him in a state where his answers during the plea colloquy were inaudible and inaccurate,” attorney Taylor Hartley said.

But the time that passed between Brown’s guilty pleas and his motion for a misplea was apparently too much for the appeals court, which stated it lacked jurisdiction to consider Brown’s challenge, the Herald reported.

“The failure to file a timely motion to withdraw a guilty plea extinguishes a defendant’s right to challenge the validity of the guilty plea on appeal,” the court wrote.