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.
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.