A 53-year-old American who was sentenced to death for murder and spent more than 30 years on death row was executed on Thursday in Texas in the southern United States.
Brent Brewer’s latest appeals were rejected by the Texas Court of Appeals on Tuesday. He was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. local time (00:38 GMT) on Thursday, according to a news release from Texas authorities.
His lawyers argued that the death sentence was imposed based on the testimony of a psychiatric expert who concluded he was dangerous without having personally examined him and despite his “exemplary” behavior in prison.
They also argued that one of the jury members who planned to vote for a life sentence was misled by the court’s instructions.
He was originally sentenced to death in 1991 for the previous year’s murder of 66-year-old Robert Laminack, who picked up Brent Brewer and his girlfriend Krystie Lynn Nystrom before stabbing the couple in the back. He had fled the scene with the victim’s wallet containing $140.
The death sentence, imposed in 1991, was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2007, but was confirmed in a new trial in 2009, based in particular on the testimony of the psychiatric expert, later deemed unreliable by the Texas courts, on the “future dangerousness” investigate the convicted person.
Brent Brewer expressed regret over his actions in a video message and explained that he only realized the seriousness of the crime after his arrest.
According to a recent Gallup Institute poll on the death penalty, a majority of Americans (50% vs. 47%) believe it is not applied fairly in the United States, a first since this monthly poll was launched in 2000.
However, according to the same source, a majority (53%) support the death penalty.
This is the 21st execution of 2023 in the United States, the seventh in Texas, all by lethal injection.
But the state of Alabama (South) has announced its intention to execute a convict, Kenneth Smith, by nitrogen inhalation in January 2024, which would be a first. In this type of execution, death is caused by hypoxia (lack of oxygen).
Mr. Smith’s execution by lethal injection in November 2022 for a murder committed in 1986 was canceled at the last minute because the intravenous infusions used to inject him with the lethal solution could not be within the legally permitted time.