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.

  • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    American justice in a nutshell.

    “I didn’t do it!”

    “We know, but if you decide to go to trial, chances are you will spend the rest of your natural life in the salt mines. So just sign here and you’ll spend only half your life in the salt mines, guaranteed.”

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yep iirc is somewhere over 60% of all criminal charges are disposed of by plea I think it’s actually 90ish% but I’m not certain.