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.
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.
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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.
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?
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!
Ah yes, they’re automatically the worst criminals.
You can release someone you’re holding prisoner. You can’t release someone from death.
Most sane kbin/mbin user.