A judge in Aiken, S.C., denied soul singer James Brown a new trial Friday and refused to reduce his six-year prison sentence on charges resulting from a police chase in late September.
"Regardless of how much good you've done or how big you are, no one is above the law," Circuit Judge Herbert Long told Brown, who sat motionless dressed in the same rumpled gray suit he wore during the week of court proceedings. "Everyone has to be treated equally."Brown was convicted Thursday of two counts of assault and failing to stop for police, charges leveled against him after he led police Sept. 24 on a chase that straddled the Georgia-South Carolina border.
In addition to the six-year prison term, Brown was sentenced to five years probation and a $6,000 fine.
Defense attorneys Bill Weeks and James Whittle offered the new trial motion in Aiken Superior Court. Long denied the motion and another asking for a reduction in Brown's sentence.