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.
The notions that modern executions by lethal injection are extremely painful are all conjecture. There’s no proof one way or the other. You have no idea which person suffered more, so don’t pretend you do. We know being stabbed in the neck and bleeding out is incredibly painful.
Stop pleading for sympathy for this shithead. I can get behind a ban on the death penalty, but too many people talk about it like the criminals who get executed are poor, unfortunate victims. They’re not. Most of them are assholes who ended someone else’s life. There are plenty of reasons to be against the death penalty, but the notion that cold-blooded murderers don’t deserve death is not one of them.
They’re still human beings and some non-zero percentage of executions are due to wrongful convictions. So, how can you be certain this person was a “shithead” deserving of a prolonged, if not painful, death?
No judgment is 100% certain and I don’t know the details of this case, but I’m also not in favor of the death penalty for this very reason. However, I do get sick of hearing other people claim those executed by the state don’t deserve their executions, because those people don’t know either. In my opinion, from a moral perspective, if you did commit premeditated murder, I do not think you should be allowed to live. So, for me, the problem with the death penalty is that our human justice systems can’t achieve enough certainty to be doling out punishments we can’t take back or ameliorate, but that’s not to say some of if not likely the majority of those who receive death sentences don’t deserve them.
“I don’t know the specifics, but this guy absolutely deserved a painful death. Stop defending him and acting like he deserved to live!”
Now I’m waiting for the ones who don’t like the death penalty because it’s not cruel enough to chime in.
Oh, they’re over on reddit. That place is a cesspool when it comes to posts like this one.
While I’m sure such people exist, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for them here.