In 1991, Brent Brewer was sentenced to dying for fatally stabbing Robert Laminack throughout a theft. Sixteen years later, the Supreme Court docket vacated his sentence, discovering that jurors had not been allowed to adequately take into account proof of Brewer’s abusive childhood and his psychological well being and habit struggles.
Michele Douglas, one of many jurors in Brewer’s 2009 resentencing case, didn’t suppose Brewer meant to kill Laminack and he or she didn’t need to sentence him to dying. “It appeared to me that he was making an attempt to steal a truck and issues merely received out of hand, with a tragic consequence,” she wrote in a Houston Chronicle op-ed on Friday. “I additionally didn’t consider that Brent could be harmful in jail. For these causes, I felt a life sentence was warranted. A minimum of considered one of my fellow jurors agreed.”
The case happened in Texas, the place jurors will not be straight requested whether or not to condemn somebody to dying. As a substitute the jury should decide tips on how to reply a collection of sure or no questions, together with whether or not the defendant will pose a future hazard to society. Ten of the 12 jurors should agree with any reply that may result in a life sentence, whereas solutions that result in the dying penalty should be unanimous.
Left unsaid in these sophisticated directions is that the defendant receives a life sentence if the jury is deadlocked — that means anyone holdout juror can block a dying sentence. However the legislation explicitly forbids jurors from being instructed they’ve this energy: The decide, protection lawyer and prosecutors “might not inform a juror or a potential juror of the impact of a failure of a jury to agree on points,” the legislation reads. Because of this, except jurors are available with a sophisticated understanding of Texas’ legal authorized system, they are going to be unaware that they, on their own, can prevent a death sentence from being imposed.
That is what occurred to Douglas. “Due to a deeply deceptive facet of Texas legislation, we weren’t instructed that if anyone juror voted for all times, that may be Brent’s sentence,” she wrote. “The way in which the jury directions learn, it appeared like a minimum of 10 folks needed to agree on a life sentence.”
“Believing — incorrectly — that my vote was meaningless, I acquiesced within the majority’s dying penalty verdict. I cried when it was learn in court docket. I used to be haunted afterwards,” Douglas wrote. When she later spoke with Brewer’s post-conviction attorneys and discovered that she, alone, might have blocked the dying sentence, she felt “mislead and cheated,” she wrote in a 2012 affidavit.
Texas officers plan to execute Brewer on Thursday except he prevails in pending litigation or receives clemency. In her op-ed, Douglas urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to commute Brewer’s sentence “to the life sentence that ought to have been the result of his trial.”
Junk Science
Like most individuals on dying row, Brewer skilled neglect, poverty and abuse all through his childhood. When he was born, his mom had not too long ago fled an abusive relationship with Brewer’s father. After his mother and father reconnected, Brewer’s father beat him “a number of instances a month, generally leaving bruises throughout Brent’s face,” in line with his commutation software. The violence culminated in his late teenagers when, whereas making an attempt to guard his mom from his father, he hit his father within the head with a brush. His father threatened to kill him and he went to dwell along with his grandmother.
Brewer used medication and alcohol to deal with his despair and was involuntarily hospitalized after his grandmother discovered a suicide notice. Shortly after his launch, Brewer, then 19 years outdated, and his girlfriend requested Laminack for a experience to a Salvation Military. As soon as within the automotive, Brewer stabbed Laminack within the neck whereas demanding his pockets. Laminack turned over the pockets and died from his wounds.
At his first trial, the state known as forensic psychiatrist Richard Coons, who, regardless of by no means assembly Brewer, predicted that he would seemingly be a part of a gang in jail and current a long-term hazard to society. Brewer was convicted and sentenced to dying.
The state known as Coons once more as a witness in Brewer’s second trial. By that time, Brewer had 19 years of documented good conduct in jail. Nonetheless, Coons — who nonetheless had not met Brewer — testified that “violence is okay with him” and “doesn’t appear to hassle him.” Coons dismissed Brewer’s good conduct file, claiming that almost all jail violence goes unreported.
Douglas, the juror, was unconvinced by Coons “as a result of he didn’t appear to have a lot to base his opinion on, definitely nothing goal,” she wrote in a 2012 affidavit. However believing she was powerless to stop a dying sentence, she “stop combating and agreed to make a unanimous verdict,” she wrote.
Shortly after Brewer’s second trial, Texas’ highest legal court docket discovered that Coons mustn’t have been allowed to testify in a separate case as a result of his claims have been unreliable and unscientific. Coons “forthrightly said that ‘he does it his means’ along with his personal methodology and has by no means gone again to see whether or not his prior predictions of future dangerousness have, in reality, been correct,” the court docket famous in its opinion.
The state has not used Coons as an professional for predicting future dangerousness since that opinion, in line with Brewer’s commutation software. However Texas’ Court docket of Prison Appeals held that Brewer’s attorneys had not correctly objected to the difficulty through the resentencing listening to and blocked him from litigating it on attraction. Brewer filed two motions final week asking the court docket to remain his execution to permit for the consideration of proof that his dying sentence was the results of false testimony by Coons.
‘I Am Sorry For What I Did’
The dying verdict weighed closely on Douglas. Shortly after the trial, she wrote Brewer a letter apologizing for the result. He wrote again and the 2 developed a friendship, Douglas wrote within the Houston Chronicle op-ed. “With Brent’s encouragement, I made a decision to channel my confusion and anger over this dying sentence into motion,” she wrote, describing how she earned her paralegal certificates, affiliate’s diploma and bachelor’s diploma in legal justice.
Texas lawmakers have repeatedly launched laws to make clear the state’s complicated jury instruction language in dying penalty instances. Such laws handed the Texas state Home with broad bipartisan assist in 2019, 2021 and 2023, however has by no means cleared the state Senate.
“In a matter of life and dying, the least we will do is present jury directions which can be clear and don’t result in confusion amongst jurors,” invoice sponsor state Rep. Joe Moody (D) tweeted last week in response to Douglas’ op-ed about her confusion over the jury directions. “Appears easy sufficient, however apparently to not the opposite chamber.”
For a lot of Brewer’s incarceration, he had no entry to academic or rehabilitative programming contained in the extremely restrictive dying row unit. In 2021, the Texas Division of Prison Justice launched a faith-based program for folks on dying row. The 18-month program consists of lectures, readings, homework assignments and group conversations. Brewer joined this system as quickly as he was authorised final yr and continued his research even after receiving his execution date.
The narrative for folks on dying row, Brewer stated in a video not too long ago recorded by his authorized staff, “is that we’re not fixable, we’re not teachable, that we’re, legally talking, we’re throwaways.” Taking part within the faith-based program has given him a way of goal, he stated.
Within the video, Brewer spoke in regards to the guilt he felt after killing Laminack. “I sobered up within the county jail and realized I had finished one thing that I can’t undo and I needed to dwell with that on daily basis,” he stated. “Phrases are form of small if you’ve taken somebody’s life, you recognize, when somebody is completely gone like that. However I’m sorry for what I did.”
“I don’t even know in the event that they need to hear that however that’s one thing I’d like to inform them personally, even when it’s simply an advocate of theirs, a stand-in, I’d like them to know that,” Brewer continued, choking again tears. “Even when it doesn’t change the result, a minimum of they get to listen to it earlier than I’m going.”
