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.
Looked up this story in the local paper for a bit more context
Responding officers found Towery in his home dead from multiple stab wounds. Part of a lamp was stuck in his throat.
Unsure how this happens in a self defense situation. Imo if you were threatened and under duress you’re gonna do what you have to do, but he was 80 years old
Fearing for her life and fueled by crack cocaine, she overcame Towery and stabbed him repeatedly – 58 times according to an autopsy report. The evidence showed Holberg also beat Towery with a claw hammer multiple times. “I lost it," Holberg told jurors.
The reasoning behind the Trump-appointed judge’s dissent:
“No jury in its right mind would believe that a 23-year-old cocaine-addled prostitute ‘defended’ herself against a frail old man by (1) stabbing him 58 times, (2) bludgeoning him with various objects including a steam iron, and (3) ramming a lamp base down his throat while he was still alive,” Duncan wrote.
In the surface that’s pretty reasonable, but the issue is the planted informant being encouraged to further incriminate the defendant:
However, the majority of the judges believed prosecutors heavily relied on Kirkpatrick’s testimony – particularly her description of how Holberg enjoyed killing Towery – to secure the conviction and during the punishment phase of the trial when they asked for the death sentence.
That’s the thing. It does not and should not matter if she did the deed. Using corrupt means to convict her invalidates the entire process. And that’s because if they used corrupt means on her then they can use them on you. Prosecutors and police doing that are trying to usurp the role of the court.
That said SCOTUS will rule that she should be immediately executed in the most inhumane way possible.
Simple clerical error what’s 14 more years on death row?
So Texas is going to execute her anyway, right? Or was that just Missouri?
This is why the death penalty or even prison sentences longer than a decade should be eliminated…
Right, because the system occasionally gets things wrong and displays corruption, we should never ever sentence serial rapists and murders to anything more than 10 years in prison.
Fucking reactionary morons.
reactionary
of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring reaction, especially extreme conservatism or rightism in politics; opposing political or social change.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/reactionary
You seem to think that word means the opposite of what it means.
No, I’m using it properly. You’re just not used to hearing it used to criticize leftist positions, but it can be. I understand new things can be hard for some people though.
Please explain to me how said leftist positions are extreme conservative or rightism, or how being for political and social change (abolishing the death penalty) is opposing political and social change.
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.
I don’t agree that they should be eliminated. They’re there for a reason.
Prohibition was there for a reason. Witches were tried for a reason. Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia for a reason.
A reason isn’t the same thing as a justification.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
What is the reason, exactly?
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.
You want to put school shooters out on the streets again after 10 years? Hard pass.
Well, but what if they plea guilty to raping and murdering a hundred kids?
10 year max?
Pleading guilty is not really an indicator of actual guilt in the American legal system.
Yeah I was gonna say, “define plead guilty”
