Brumfield and his accomplice, Henri Broadway (born September 7, 1970),[4] shot and killed Officer Smothers while she was escorting the manager of a grocery store to the bank.

[5] Smothers was the mother of Warrick Dunn, who later became a running back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons.

Brumfield had an IQ score of 75, had a fourth-grade reading level, had been treated at psychiatric hospitals as a child, had a learning disability, and had been placed in special education classes.

[5][6] Justice Samuel Alito joined Justice Thomas' dissent in part, and then filed a second dissent to simply state that Thomas' inclusion of Warrick Dunn's life story as a contrast to Brumfield's, while inspiring, is not an essential part of the legal analysis.

[5] On July 20, 2016, Brumfield was resentenced to life in prison after he was ruled intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution.