Legal groups: Free Tennessee woman sentenced to life at 16

NASHVILLE – More than a dozen national advocacy groups want the release of a Tennessee woman imprisoned for life after she shot and killed a man who solicited her as a teenage prostitute.

According to The Tennessean , Cyntoia Brown received support in a federal appeals court brief by the Southern Poverty Law Center, The Sentencing Project, the Center for Wrongful Convictions of Youth and others.

Brown has been in prison since 2004, when she was convicted of killing the 43-year-old man who solicited her.

With support from several celebrities, her appeal addresses her sentence’s constitutionality and says she lacked the mental capacity for a murder conviction.

Brown’s advocates say she was a 16-year-old sex trafficking victim. Prosecutors say Brown killed the man to rob him.

Brown isn’t parole eligible until she’s 67.

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Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com