A federal appeals court has tossed an Amarillo woman’s death sentence after it found that local prosecutors had failed to reveal that their primary trial witness was a paid informant.
With a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last week sent Brittany Marlowe Holberg’s 1998 murder conviction back down to the trial court to decide how to proceed.
Holberg has been on death row for 27 years. In securing her conviction in 1998, Randall County prosecutors heavily relied on testimony from a jail inmate who was working as a confidential informant for the City of Amarillo police. That informant recanted her testimony in 2011, but neither a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals or a federal district court found that prosecutors had violated Holberg’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
I don’t agree that they should be eliminated. They’re there for a reason.
The problem is the unreasonable system we have in place. There had been stories of evidence provided to the judge that simply got ignored that would’ve proven innocence and the prisoner got killed still. That isn’t the flaw with the penalty, it’s a flaw with the poor decision making of the judges and everyone involved in the system.
I don’t understand what about that people don’t get when they advocate against death penalties. Advocate for a better and thorough justice system.
There is no reason for the death penalty. It does not serve justice. It does not act as a deterrent. It does not save cost.
It would save money if we let the conservatives empower cops and judge and jury…
It would also be horrible and create shadow governments and insurgencies but it would be massively cheaper.
There is no reason to also keep wasting taxpayer dollars keeping murderers and worst criminals alive. People like you seem to be happy in doing that and actually believe they can be reformed. When, the large majority seems to disagree with you. You don’t have and never have had a solution to this. So what makes you think you’ve got a stance to abolish death penalties?
All that your kind seems to do is just waste people’s time with your runaround logic. It’s tiresome.
No, I’m done, I’m not going to hear more replies from people who I’ve exampled. There’s a reason things exist and you don’t want to accept that, fine, whatever. But you keep running around your own circular logic for all I care.
As all inmates have the right to a fair trial and every death penalty inmate appeals at every possible turn. This is 100% paid for by the taxpayer and makes executing people more expensive than housing them for their entire life. Any attempt to reduce this cost is met by an increase in likely unjust executions.
Your view is essentially “the death penalty exists so it is right” which is not a logically derived opinion. I don’t think you should talk about other people’s circular logic while avoiding recognizing your own.
You think true justice isn’t worth working toward? Better to kill people just to be safe, and if a few innocent people are murdered, well, it’s a small price to pay, right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_in_the_United_States
Here’s a long list of reasons that you’re wrong.
Ah yes, they’re automatically the worst criminals.
You can release someone you’re holding prisoner. You can’t release someone from death.
What is the reason, exactly?
Abolishing the death penalty is not about costs or punishment. It’s about sparing the innocent a wrongful execution. As long as you advocate for the death penalty you are advocating for the murder of innocent people. No system is 100% accurate 100% of the time.
The ONLY way to be absolutely certain that we aren’t wrongfully executing people is to stop executions entirely.
Fuck are you on about, it costs more taxpayer dollars to execute someone and we fucking get it wrong all the time. Stop thinking with your feelings and get educated on something before you spout nonsense about it being “common sense” or whatever. It’s actually common sense to get rid of it!
Most sane kbin/mbin user.
That is the main flaw, all of this relies on people who cannot make correct decisions every time. That’s why the death penalty can never be implemented without killing innocent people. You cannot remove human bias from the justice system, it has to be managed.
Prohibition was there for a reason. Witches were tried for a reason. Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia for a reason.
Having a reason doesn’t make you right.
Or, not every reason is “good”.
It’s like things being legal. Being legal doesn’t make it right.
Put that on a t-shirt!
There should be no death penalty without a perfect justice system that always gets convictions right. Because that is impossible, the death penalty shouldn’t exist. Besides imo the justice system should be about rehabilitation, and the death penalty is the opposite to that approach.
I met a black man who was on death row for 14 years for the rape and murder of a white girl. The judge, prosecutor, and public defender all ignored evidence of her body being covered in strawberry blonde pubic hair which this man being black does not have. Thus he spent 14 years and was almost executed twice because everyone involved conspired to have him be convicted. Everyone involved got off scot free and no one faced any punishment for deciding to murder this guy because no one wanted to follow up on the evidence the police gathered.
I don’t know why anyone who considers themselves to be rational would support the death penalty when you know irrational and stupid people exist.