A Texas prisoner who says he was sentenced to loss of life based mostly on false professional testimony faces execution

A Texas inmate, whose legal professionals say he was sentenced to loss of life due to false and unscientific professional testimony, confronted execution Thursday night for stabbing an Amarillo man throughout a theft greater than 33 years in the past.

Brent Ray Brewer, 53, was convicted of the April 1990 homicide of Robert Laminack, 66, who was attacked whereas driving Brewer and his girlfriend to a Salvation Military location. Prosecutors stated Laminack was stabbed within the neck and was robbed of $140.

Brewer’s legal professionals requested the US Supreme Court docket to remain the execution, which was scheduled to be carried out on Thursday night on the state jail in Huntsville, Texas. They are saying that in the course of the prisoner’s trial in 2009, prosecutors relied on false and discredited testimony from professional Richard Coons, who claimed that Brewer can be a hazard sooner or later, a authorized discovering essential to impose the loss of life penalty.

The Texas Court docket of Felony Appeals on Tuesday rejected an attraction of the case with out reviewing the deserves of the argument, saying the case ought to have been filed earlier.

“We’re deeply disturbed that (the Court docket of Appeals) refuses to deal with the injustice of permitting Brent Brewer to be executed with out a possibility to problem Dr. Cohn’s false and unscientific testimony,” stated Sean Nolan, considered one of Brewer’s attorneys.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday voted 7-0 towards commuting Brewer’s loss of life sentence to a lesser sentence. The members additionally refused to grant a six-month deadline.

Brewer, who was 19 on the time of Laminack’s killing, stated he was a mannequin inmate with no historical past of violence and tried to develop into a greater individual by taking part in a non secular program for loss of life row inmates.

Brewer has lengthy expressed regret for the killing and his want to apologize to Laminack’s household.

“I’ll by no means be capable to repay or exchange the harm (and) nervousness (and) ache I’ve precipitated you. It’s with true humility and honest coronary heart that I come to you and ask to your forgiveness,” Brewer wrote in a letter to Laminack’s household that was included in his clemency request to the parole board. Conditional.

In an e-mail, Laminack’s son, Robert Laminack Jr., stated his household wouldn’t remark earlier than the scheduled execution date.

Prosecutors stated Brewer and his girlfriend first approached Laminack outdoors an Amarillo flooring retailer earlier than attacking him.

Laminack’s son took over his father’s enterprise, which had begun in 1950, and continued to run it with different relations.

Brewer was convicted of capital homicide and sentenced to loss of life in 1991. However in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned the loss of life sentences that Brewer and two different Texas inmates acquired after ruling that the jury of their circumstances didn’t have correct directions Once they determined that the lads ought to be executed.

The Supreme Court docket discovered that jurors weren’t allowed to offer ample weight to elements which may immediate them to impose a life sentence moderately than loss of life. His legal professionals stated Brewer was abused as a baby and suffered from psychological sickness, elements that jurors weren’t allowed to bear in mind.

Breuer was once more sentenced to loss of life throughout a brand new punitive trial in 2009.

Brewer’s attorneys declare that on the resentencing trial, Coons lied and declared, with none scientific foundation, that Brewer had no conscience and would pose a hazard sooner or later, regardless that Brewer had no historical past of violence whereas in jail.

In a 2010 ruling within the case of one other loss of life row inmate, the Texas Court docket of Felony Appeals described Conn’s testimony about future dangerousness as “insufficiently dependable” and that he shouldn’t be allowed to testify.

Randall County District Legal professional Robert Love, whose workplace prosecuted Brewer, denied in courtroom paperwork that prosecutors offered false testimony about whether or not Brewer would pose a hazard sooner or later, and famous that Cone’s testimony was “not materials to the jury’s verdict.”

Final week, Michelle Douglas, a juror in Brewer’s 2009 resentencing trial, he said in an op-ed The Houston Chronicle reported that deceptive directions precipitated her to mistakenly vote for loss of life when she thought a life sentence can be applicable within the case. State Rep. Joe Moody, who tried to go laws to reform the deceptive directions cited by Douglas, stated it was “morally flawed” to execute Brewer underneath the circumstances.

Brewer would be the seventh prisoner in Texas and the twenty first in the US to be executed this yr.