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.

    • rosymind@leminal.space
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      1 year ago

      It’s funny that we live in a society where trying to kill yourself is a crime (punishment of which is to be locked up) but also one where if you commit a certain type of crime (or rather, are convicted of committing a certain type of crime) your punishment is to be locked up until you’re put to death

      So strange

      Eta: it’s like:

      “Oh you tried to kill yourself? Jail time!” “Oh you killed someone? DEATH”

      They’re saying death is only ok when the government does it to you (barring natural death and even then hospitals try everything they can to keep people alive, even those who are well past their expiration date and have given up on life a long time ago)