Dr. William James Brownlee III This is Me

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1. 1. William J. Brownlee; Deputy D.C. Coroner (washingtonpost.com)

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   Published on: 1/5/2002   Last Visited: 1/5/2002

   William J. Brownlee; Deputy D.C. Coroner (washingtonpost.com)
   
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   William J. Brownlee; Deputy D.C. Coroner
   
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   William James Brownlee, 71, a Washington physician for more than 40 years and a retired deputy medical examiner for the District, died Dec. 20 at Georgetown University Hospital of complications related to leukemia.
   
   As the District's deputy medical examiner from 1966 to 1980, Dr. Brownlee conducted more than 5,000 postmortem examinations. After retiring from that post, he was an expert medical witness in hundreds of civil and criminal cases. Over the course of his career, his work included such high-profile cases as the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, the killings at the headquarters of the Hanafi Muslims and the Letelier-Moffit bombing assassination.
   
   Since 1961, Dr. Brownlee had operated a private medical practice in Washington. In recent years, his three children, all physicians, had joined him in the practice. He also was an assistant professor of surgery at Howard University medical school and coordinator of the medical staff and chairman of the surgery department at Hadley Memorial Hospital in the District.
   
   In the early years of his medical career, Dr. Brownlee was chief medical officer of the emergency room at D.C. General Hospital, where he acquired an expertise in the precise nature of the injuries and traumas inflicted on the human body by bullets, knives, blunt instruments, speeding automobiles, rocks, bottles, bricks, screwdrivers or anything else capable of causing intentional or accidental harm.
   
   He would put this knowledge to use as an expert legal witness more than 700 times, often enough to earn him the nickname of "D.C.'s Quincy."
   
   As an expert witness, Dr. Brownlee projected a low-key, homey and aw-shucks image. He was a tall man with a bushy mustache and gold-rimmed glasses. "I look at my work as being a friend of the court. . . . I am responsible on the witness stand for conveying to the jury some of the highly technical terminology and aspects of the case so that the jury understands. And then I render the 'why' of my opinion."
   
   He always made it a point to couch his testimony in familiar terms. "You really try to interpret scientific data into everyday life that most people understand or can relate to," he told The Washington Post in 1982. "It doesn't make sense to use an inordinate amount of scientific or medical information when there are no doctors on the jury.
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   Dr. Brownlee, a resident of Washington, was born in Camden, S.C. He graduated from what now is North Carolina Central University and received his medical degree from Howard University medical school.
   
   He received his surgical training at what was then Freedmen's Hospital, where he was given the Charles R. Drew Memorial Award for excellence in surgery. Later, he was an Army medical officer at Fort Meade.
   
   Serving in the office of the D.C. medical examiner, Dr. Brownlee directed postmortem examinations in the 1976 car bomb assassination in Sheridan Circle of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, a staff member of the Institute for Policy Studies, and presided over autopsies of seven people slain in a home that served as headquarters for the Hanafi Muslims in 1973.
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   Dr. Brownlee had given lectures in the medical and legal communities on surgery, forensic pathology, accident reconstruction, substance abuse, emergency services and trauma. He was a member of the National Medical Association, the District of Columbia Medical Society and the Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia.
   
   His avocations included golf, and he was a member of the National Negro Golf Association. He was a former trustee of the Madeira School.
   
   Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Mary Bettis Brownlee, and three children, Drs. Wanda V. Brownlee, Taunya M. Brownlee and William J. Brownlee III, all of Washington.