Update: Supreme Court rejects appeal of Cyntoia Brown, a former teen sex trafficking victim who killed an alleged ‘john’ pedophile
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A Tennessee woman who killed a man who propositioned her for sex when she was 16 years old, was sentenced serve at least 51 years behind bars, per the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Pix11 reports that despite an appeal arguing her sentence for murder was unconstitutional, five Supreme Court justices unanimously agreed that Cyntoia Brown’s sentence would be upheld. Brown, now 30, who was a juvenile when committed the crime, cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 opinion in her appeal, that life sentences without the possibility of parole for underage offenders violates the U.S. Constitution.

As CrimeOnline previously reported,  Brown filed the appeal after she killed Johnny Mitchell Allen, 43, in 2004. Allen was reportedly a “john” who took Brown to his house after her abusive pimp boyfriend set her up for sex trafficking. Brown claimed Allen was being abusive and scared for her life, she picked up his gun and shot him to death.

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Brown was tried as an adult and ultimately convicted of first-degree murder and given a life sentence.

Brown previously stated that her early childhood was filled with abuse and exposure to adults partaking in drugs. She was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and her mother, Georgina Mitchell, allegedly began using crack cocaine when Brown was around eight months old, according to a 2011 documentary about Brown, entitled “Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story.”

When Brown was a toddler, Mitchell gave her up for adoption to a woman named Ellenette Brown. While Ellenette Brown provided a more stable home than her mother did, Brown never developed the stability she needed in her life, according to the documentary. When Brown was a teen, she ran away from home.

Brown made her way to Nashville, where an alleged pimp by the name of  “Kutthroat” or “Cut-throat” quickly figured out that she was a runaway and on her own. He recruited her in with false promises of a better life, but eventually began calling her a “who**” and acting demeaning toward her.

He later allegedly raped her, molested her, and trafficked her for sex. The forced prostitution eventually landed her at Allen’s home after she met him at a Sonic fast food restaurant in Nashville.

“He [Kutthroat] would explain to me that some people were born who***, and that I was one, and I was a slut, and nobody’d want me but him, and the best thing I could do was just learn to be a good who**,” Brown said to a judge a during a previous 2012 appeal hearing.

Brown said she met Allen on August 5, 2004, and right away had an uneasy feeling about him. She said Allen kept “standing over her,” and later, while they were both in bed, she saw him reach over for what she thought was a gun. Brown said she shot Allen, a former sharp shooter in the U.S. Army, in the head, after fearing for her life.

She took his two guns and his money before she fled his home. Brown ended up at a local Walmart, where she made an anonymous call to police and told them Allen had been shot. Prosecutors alleged her motive was robbery, and subsequently, she was sentenced to life in prison.

“Me Facing Life: The Cyntoia Brown Story” helped Brown gain national attention, but it wasn’t enough to sway a judge to grant her appeal. She’s earned a college degree while behind bars and is considered a model prisoner, but as of now, she remains at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville with parole eligibility at age 69.

“[Cyntoia] was a victim of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She was on the tail end of three generations of women being abused. Her birth mother had been raped and Cyntoia was born from that rape,” filmmaker Dan Birman, who made the documentary, told FOX News.

The Tennessee Supreme Court explained to Brown that “under state law, a life sentence is a determinate sentence of 60 years. However, the sixty-year sentence can be reduced by up to 15 percent, or 9 years, by earning various sentence credits.”

Brown’s appeal was previously denied by a district court, citing that her life sentence was not without the possibility of parole.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case next and asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to provide its opinion.

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[Feature Photo: Cyntoia Brown via AP/The Tennessean, Pool]