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.
This is why the death penalty or even prison sentences longer than a decade should be eliminated…
I agree that there shouldn’t be a death penalty. I also think that any life sentence should always have the opportunity for parole.
But some people need to be removed from society for the sake of the community. Releasing serial offenders just guarantees more victims.
There are plenty of countries with a 20 year max doing just fine. They usually have an exception for the criminally insane. Anyone else should be getting out at some point.
You mean like the Dutch who sent a convicted pedophile to the Olympics?
Edit: sorry getting a 12 year old drunk and raping her doesn’t make you a pedo according to The Dutch Olympic committee
Hey he got a sentence 3.5 years longer than Brock Turner. Don’t act like he would have been in prison for life in the US.
Brock Turner? The rapist Brock Turner? The same Brock Turner who goes by Allen Turner now because he kept getting called a rapist?
Allen Turner the rapist? Rapist, Allen Turner? Who used to go by “Brock Turner The Rapist”?
Oh god, no. I’ve seen too many true crime shows to know that some people would go back to killing as soon as they get out.
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.
Prohibition was there for a reason. Witches were tried for a reason. Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia for a reason.
Having a reason doesn’t make it right.
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.
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.
Well, but what if they plea guilty to raping and murdering a hundred kids?
10 year max?
In the US, I think they do consecutive sentencing. So that’d be 10 years times 100 or 200 crimes
I think their point is 10 years max for every charge. Which, depending on the crime, could guarantee a lot of repeat offenders.
Good luck fixing some of them in 10 years…
Well, the prison system never really tries to fix anyone :(
In some countries it does.
Long sentences are useful when they don’t try to fix prisoners. Because if you can’t fix them, you can at least keep them out of society.
Pleading guilty is not really an indicator of actual guilt in the American legal system.
So regardless, 10 year max?