A federal appeals court tossed Brittany Holberg's death sentence after it found that prosecutors failed to reveal that their primary trial witness was a paid informant.

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.

  • __ghost__@lemmy.ml
    18·
    18 hours ago

    Looked up this story in the local paper for a bit more context

    Responding officers found Towery in his home dead from multiple stab wounds. Part of a lamp was stuck in his throat.

    Unsure how this happens in a self defense situation. Imo if you were threatened and under duress you’re gonna do what you have to do, but he was 80 years old

    Fearing for her life and fueled by crack cocaine, she overcame Towery and stabbed him repeatedly – 58 times according to an autopsy report. The evidence showed Holberg also beat Towery with a claw hammer multiple times. “I lost it," Holberg told jurors.

    The reasoning behind the Trump-appointed judge’s dissent:

    “No jury in its right mind would believe that a 23-year-old cocaine-addled prostitute ‘defended’ herself against a frail old man by (1) stabbing him 58 times, (2) bludgeoning him with various objects including a steam iron, and (3) ramming a lamp base down his throat while he was still alive,” Duncan wrote.

    In the surface that’s pretty reasonable, but the issue is the planted informant being encouraged to further incriminate the defendant:

    However, the majority of the judges believed prosecutors heavily relied on Kirkpatrick’s testimony – particularly her description of how Holberg enjoyed killing Towery – to secure the conviction and during the punishment phase of the trial when they asked for the death sentence.

    • orcrist@lemm.ee
      1·
      5 hours ago

      If the evidence was so good, why did the prosecution fabricate a witness? … Your explanation glosses over this key fact.

      And also, people can protect themselves and later make crazy decisions. That is definitely possible. Likely, even, if they are on hard drugs. So the shocking evidence, well, it isn’t so easy to interpret. Which is why a jury has to deal with it, not that Trump judge, and not you and me.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      16·
      15 hours ago

      That’s the thing. It does not and should not matter if she did the deed. Using corrupt means to convict her invalidates the entire process. And that’s because if they used corrupt means on her then they can use them on you. Prosecutors and police doing that are trying to usurp the role of the court.

      That said SCOTUS will rule that she should be immediately executed in the most inhumane way possible.

      • Azteh@lemmy.world
        21·
        9 hours ago

        It absolutely should matter if she did the deed, as that makes her a murderer, but I will concede that if they used corrupt means to convict her it does invalidate the whole process.

        There is a very fine balance to be struck here that I don’t think I can do justice.

        • orcrist@lemm.ee
          1·
          4 hours ago

          There is not a fine balance.

          Innocent until proven guilty. The prosecution did not do a legal and lawful job of getting a conviction, so right now she’s innocent. In other words, if you’re trying to do reasoning based on “what if she’s a murderer”, then we already have that answer sitting in front of us.

          That’s the basic premise of the legal system. Now, if you are some omniscient being, then you might be able to do other types of reasoning. But we aren’t, and we never will be, so we can’t.

          In other words, there is no fine balance. The prosecution decided their case wasn’t good enough to be presented fairly, and they somehow got away with their evil actions for the past 27 years.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          3·
          7 hours ago

          Ethically it certainly matters. But systems wise we cannot incentivize it. Which is why corrupt prosecutions are legally supposed to result in removing the conviction. She’s certainly not magically a good person. And iirc most states allow another trial.