DC Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan sentenced a homicide defendant to 14 years of imprisonment after hearing multiple impact statements from both sides on April 10.
Monteze Morton, 36, pleaded guilty on Feb. 5 to voluntary manslaughter while armed for his involvement in the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Dimitrious Brown on March 22, 2024 on the 2800 block of Hartford Street, SE.
“He’s gone, they’re putting him in a body bag right now,” Brown’s sister told Judge Ryan that was the phone call she received the day Brown died. She tracked his location that day, and when she saw his phone was at the morgue, she knew he was truly gone.
“The pain my family and I have felt will never be summed up by a sentence,” Brown’s sister said and questioned “How do you tell your nephew his dad is gone?”
Brown’s sister read a statement from the mother of Brown’s children. The letter wrote “ I will never forget that day. The last time I spoke to him he told me he was on his way to pick up our son. My son was waiting for his dad, he is still waiting.”
Brown’s mother gave a statement, she told Judge Ryan that her world crashed that day. She had to break the news to her mother who was dying from cancer in the hospital.
She said her mother was calling out for “Tre” and she had to tell her mom that “Tre’s not here anymore, but if you want to go be with him, I’ll be okay.” She received a call later that night from the hospital telling her her mom passed away.
“I had to bury two people,” continued Brown’s mother in her statement.
“I lost a part of me that day, and today I am here for the sentencing for the murderer of my son,” his mother told Judge Ryan.
Prosecutors stated that this was “a senseless act of gun violence,” and that Morton had two prior convictions that should have prevented him from having a gun, “yet he had one anyway.”
“We are asking for 14 years because Morton is a dangerous individual,” prosecutors told Judge Ryan.
Thomas Key, Morton’s attorney, requested Judge Ryan to sentence him to 10-and-a-half years and that they understand that “nothing the court does can bring back Mr. Brown.”
Key presented evidence that Brown was the initial aggressor, and that he was armed that day. Key claimed that after Brown got in a fight with his girlfriend he approached Morton and “stuck his hand in his pants, making Morton aware that he had a gun.”
According to Key, Morton pulled out his gun and pointed it at Brown as Brown began to run away when Morton fired his shots.
“Morton admitted that it was unreasonable to shoot him and he should have just let him run away,” continued Key. “The fact that Brown was the initial aggressor makes a difference in this sentencing.”
Morton told Brown’s mother, “Ms. Brown I apologize, I regret shooting Mr. Brown, I should’ve just let him run.”
Judge Ryan sentenced Morton to 14 years imprisonment and five years supervised release. He will get credit for time served and must register as a gun offender.
No further dates were scheduled.
