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”?
Yeah, that asshole.
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.
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”
So regardless, 10 year max?
Woah, that straw man came outta fuckin nowhere.
It isn’t that far from what some people have done. Perhaps reassessment every 5-10y but there are people in jail who do not and cannot fit in a civil society. Serial killers, child rapists, etc these people exist, you want to stick them in a mental institute instead fine but allowing them back into society isn’t wise.
I am fully aware and believe there are people who can no longer exist/function in society today, and they absolutely should be reassesed with massive amounts of therapy and everything to try and reintegrate them, but not released after some arbitrary deadline.
I was simply pointing out a straw man when I saw it.
Its not straw.
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 :(
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Yes
Sounds like a pretty good way to get people to say “I’m willing to risk a relatively small chunk of my life to kill someone forever.” I’m guessing you’ve never had anyone you know murdered for nothing?
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.
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.
Reactionary means reverting to previous norms rather than “conserving” the status quo. Name a historical period where punishment of crime was less harsh than now. The death penalty used to be given for much less severe crimes, and enacted with a full complement of torture. People were given effective life sentences for minor infractions.
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.