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.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    If that’s how you interpret “pro life” then you must be okay with this execution if you’re “pro choice”. The state “choose” to execute this man after all.

      • lazynooblet@lazysoci.al
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        8 months ago

        Ya. It doesn’t make sense at all. That’s like saying anti abortion legislators are Pro choice because they are choosing to force you to have that rapist’s baby.

      • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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        8 months ago

        I mean, the original comment was pretty shit too. That was kinda the point. Knowingly taking words out of context as a gotcha does absolutely nothing useful and only serves to annoy literally everyone involved. You’re not clever

          • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            That using political slogans outside their intended context and reading them literally is a bad idea.

            Also that partisans will only notice when you do that for one side’s slogan and not the other.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              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
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                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
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                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
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                  8 months ago

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

    • Mcdolan@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      If that’s how you interpret “pro choice” no wonder you want control over women’s bodies…?

      This seems like a poor choice of articles to discuss abortion in though. And yes, I know you didn’t start it.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Do you mean to say it’s a bad idea to interpret a political slogan literally and in a different context from where it is meant to be used?

    • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Pro-choice is for bodily autonomy. The death penalty is very much against bodily autonomy.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        And “pro life” is for fetuses not convicted murderers.

        It’s interesting how partisans view the world though. Anything I post pointing out this discrepancy is voted way down. But the “hurr pro life” post is voted up.

        Tribalism is a hell of a drug. 😆

          • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Apparently. Can you point that out to me? What I read said he was convicted and twice sentenced to death. And the defence only challenged the death penalty claiming “Richard Coons, falsely claimed Brewer would be a future danger” without any details about what that means (the article seems to be taking their word for it).

            And I see a letter from him apologizing for the murder.

            Nowhere do I see anybody claiming he is innocent.

        • Serdan@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          The typical pro life position is that a fetus is a person and therefore has a right to live.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      I’m against capital punishment because convictions can be overturned, but executions cannot.

      That said, your crimes against logic are clear and convincing. Ironically, they’ve also convinced me to change my mind. You, definitely deserve to be executed for this clear case of language perversion and aggregated rhetorical idiocy.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Sooo - my “crime against logic” was a mockery of how bad the logic the person I was responding to was.

        I used the same tactic they did. Misunderstanding “the other side” and assuming my straw-man version of their point was valid.

        Subtlety doesn’t work on Lemmy or with partisans.

        • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          It’s your misunderstanding, not theirs. The origins of the pro-life movement is Catholic and absolutely includes opposition to capital punishment, as well as abortion.

            • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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              8 months ago

              A pig’s orgasm can last up to 30 minutes!

              Figured you’d like to know, as we’re now clearly in the sharing irrelevant facts stage of conversation.

                • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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                  8 months ago

                  No, I understood what you were saying. But the Christian fundamentalists hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate the critique that being pro capital punishment is antithetical to being pro-life.

                  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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                    8 months ago

                    I mean… If the person making the argument tells you that they only believe in death penalties for people who have been convicted of a heinous crime… You’re telling me that contradicts their belief that an innocent child should not be killed before birth (their believe - not mine)?

                    I honestly don’t see that as hypocritical.