A Texas man who said his death sentence was based on false and unscientific expert testimony was executed Thursday evening for killing a man during a robbery decades ago.

Brent Ray Brewer, 53, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the April 1990 death of Robert Laminack. The inmate was pronounced dead at 6:39 p.m. local time, 15 minutes after the chemicals began flowing.

Prosecutors had said Laminack, 66, gave Brewer and his girlfriend a ride to a Salvation Army location in Amarillo when he was stabbed in the neck and robbed of $140.

Brewer’s execution came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to step in over the inmate’s claims that prosecutors had relied on false and discredited expert testimony at his 2009 resentencing trial.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 months ago

    I’m pretty sure the context that “all life is precious” applies here. That’s what pro-lifers claim. But apparently someone who may be innocent still deserves to be executed according to the people pro-lifers knowingly vote for.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      Brewer has long expressed remorse for the killing and a desire to apologize to Laminack’s family.

      “I will never be able to repay or replace the hurt (and) worry (and) pain I caused you. I come to you in true humility and honest heart and ask for your forgiveness,” Brewer wrote in a letter to Laminack’s family that was included in his clemency application to the parole board.

      He did not dispute the guilty verdict. He is guilty. He admitted guilt. He has not claimed innocence. Quite the contrary, he explicitly claimed to have committed the murder.

      He disputed the expert testimony of a witness at his sentencing hearing who claimed he would forever remain a danger.

    • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      33
      ·
      8 months ago

      Nobody is claiming he is innocent in the article that I read.

      But you don’t think that somebody can believe that life is precious but also that some people don’t deserve to live?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        Yes, people can believe all kinds of contradictory things. That doesn’t make them any less hypocritical.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            Yes, but I don’t label myself as “pro-freedom,” so I’m not sure what relevance that has.

            • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              17
              ·
              8 months ago

              You really don’t get that slogans are designed to be catchy rather than descriptive? Really? REALLY?

              Like you never got annoyed about how people (mis)interpreted “defund the police”? Or “black lives matter”?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                9
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                I’m not misinterpreting anything. If “all life is precious” that means there are no exceptions. And that’s what they say.