53-year-old Brent Ray Brewer, who had been opposing the death penalty for years, which he described as “based on unfair and unfounded accusations”, was executed by lethal injection yesterday in Texas, in the south of the USA. He was sentenced to death in 1991 for killing a man during a robbery in 1990. Doctors at Huntsville state prison pronounced him dead at 18.39 local time (1.39 last night in Italy), fifteen minutes after injecting lethal chemicals into his body. . According to the investigation, the victim, 66-year-old Robert Laminack, was stabbed in the neck and robbed of $140 while driving Brewer and his girlfriend.
Execution of Brent Ray Brewer
Brent Ray Brewer’s execution came just hours after the federal Supreme Court decided not to intervene following another request from the prisoner’s lawyers; Accordingly, the sentence was given based on false accusations and statements that did not seem very convincing. . The death sentence was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 2007. After determining that the jury was not given sufficient information about the case. The Supreme Court had found that jurors were not allowed to give sufficient weight to factors that could have led them to impose a sentence of life imprisonment rather than death. His attorneys argued that Brewer was abused in his childhood and suffered from mental illness, factors jurors could not consider.
But the death penalty was later confirmed during a new trial that began in 2009 and relied on the testimony of a psychiatrist, a conclusion that was not very convincing. Brewer’s attorneys argue that the expert lied during the criminal review process and declared without any scientific basis that Brewer would be a future danger to society.
Brewer’s fortunes never changed again
Brewer’s fate did not change again until the lethal injection. “We were deeply shocked by the court’s rejection,” said Shawn Nolan, one of the defense attorneys. Brewer was executed before he had the opportunity to defend himself.” Last Tuesday, the prison commission, which could have blocked the execution, unanimously approved the death penalty. Brewer, who was 19 at the time, said he had been a model prisoner for all those years, that he had not been involved in any violent incidents, and that he had also committed a number of religious crimes against prisoners. He said he was trying to “become a better person” by participating in the program to death.
Brewer has long expressed “remorse” for the murder and a desire to apologize to Laminack’s family: “I can never repay or make up for the pain I have caused you. I come to you with true humility and an honest heart and beg for your forgiveness,” Brewer wrote in a letter to Laminack’s family requesting mercy. to the parole board.
He became the seventh prisoner in Texas and the 21st prisoner to be executed in the United States in 2023.
“Even after 33 years, I don’t even know where to start. How do you fix something that can’t be fixed? The man who is now 53 is not the 19-year-old man he was in April 1990. I don’t even know that guy. How can you explain stabbing someone and then running away? When you’re 19, 20 and confused, doing drugs, drinking or hanging out with the wrong people, you don’t have a real value system. I guess you call this the moral compass. “I sobered up in the county jail and realized I had done something I couldn’t take back and I had to live with it every day.”
A new letter from Brent Brewer
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.