An Indianapolis defense attorney who is nationally recognized as a death-penalty expert capped a two-month trial in New Hampshire this week, successfully keeping her client off death row and preventing him from becoming the first person to be executed in that state in 70 years.

Attorney Monica Foster with Foster & Long-Sharp learned about 3 p.m. Thursday that after more than eight hours of deliberation, jurors rejected the death penalty and opted for life imprisonment sentence for millionaire businessman John "Jay" Brooks. Jurors in mid-October found him guilty on two counts of capital murder, first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit murder, according to news accounts. He was convicted for orchestrating the kidnapping and killing of a handyman in 2005.

Foster has been involved in hundreds of capital cases throughout Indiana and across the country. She joined another noted death penalty attorney, David Bruck of Virginia, in assisting on the penalty phase of Brooks' trial. They portrayed their client as a Navy veteran and former businessman who'd built a multi-million dollar medical supply company from scratch - not someone who deserved to die.