Brent Ray Brewer, 53, was executed by lethal injection on 9 November
2023 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a man he asked
for a ride.

On Monday, 26 April 1990, Brewer, then 19, and his girlfriend, Kristie
Nystrom, 21, approached Robert Laminack, 66, outside his business in
Amarillo and asked him for a ride to the local Salvation Army office.
He agreed. Nystrom took the passenger seat of his truck, and Brewer
sat in the rear. After traveling about a block, Brewer produced a
butterfly knife and stabbed Laminack several times in the neck while
Nystrom held his arm to keep him from fighting back. Laminack begged
for his life while obeying Brewer's demand to hand over his wallet.
Brewer and Nystrom took his wallet containing $140 in cash and fled to
the apartment of a friend, where they changed their bloody clothing.
Laminack bled to death.

Brewer received treatment at a hospital for a deep cut to his palm
that was inflicted during the attack. He and Nystrom then fled to Red
Oak, south of Dallas. They were arrested on 8 May 1990.

A jury found Brewer guilty of capital murder in 1991 and sentenced him
to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction
and sentence in 1994.

Kristie Lynn Nystrom pleaded guilty to capital murder and received a
life sentence. According to public records, she is still in prison as
of this writing.

In 2004, Brewer wrote a letter to the trial judge requesting an
execution date because of "the inactions of the counsel I've had thus
far."

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Brewer's death sentence
because the jury was not sufficiently instructed to consider
potentially mitigating evidence of Brewer's history of depression and
mental illness.

Brewer was given a new punishment hearing. Unlike in 1991, Kristie
Nystrom testified at this one. She gave details of the killing that
the first jury did not hear, such as that Brewer began stabbing
Laminack before asking for his wallet or truck keys. Brewer took the
stand to testify about his remorse for the killing.

The jury sentenced Brewer to death a second time. The Court of
Criminal Appeals affirmed that sentence in November 2011.

Brewer's appeals mostly centered around the testimony of Dr. Gene
Coons, a psychiatrist who testified for the state that Brewer
presented a future danger to society - a required element of a death
sentence in Texas. Coons's methods have been criticized in several
death penalty cases and are now considered by the courts to be
unscientific. The appeals courts held in Brewer's case, however, that
when compared with the rest of the evidence presented at his
sentencing hearing, Coons's testimony was "not particularly powerful,"
and that its absence would likely not have changed the result of him
receiving a death sentence.

Most newspapers and web sites covering Brewer's execution highlighted
Brewer's rejected appeals claims about Coons. For example, the Texas
Observer's headline asserted that Brewer's death sentence rested
"largely" on Coons's testimony, in contradiction to what the courts
found. "His testimony proved damning," the article read.

State and federal courts dismissed Brewer's claims about Coons again
in a round of last-ditch appeals in the days before Brewer's
execution. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up his case. The
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also unanimously voted against
extending him clemency.

Robert Laminack's wife, Miriam Laminack, and daughter, Debra Corbin,
watched Brewer's execution from a viewing room adjacent to the death
chamber.

"I would like to tell the family of the victim that I could never
figure out the words to fix what I have broken," Brewer said in his
last statement. "I just want you to know that this 53 year old is not
the same reckless 19-year-old kid from 1990. I hope you find peace,
and I mean it." The lethal injection was then started. He was
pronounced dead at 6:39 p.m.

"Brent Ray Brewer was in prison more than 33 years," Corbin said after
watching Brewer die. "Our mom says our family has been in prison 33
years. We have been released today."

David Carson
(Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents,
Associated Press, Beaumont Enterprise, Huntsville Item, Texas
Observer.)
--
Texas Execution Information
www.txexecutions.org

David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:

>Brent Ray Brewer, 53, was executed by lethal injection on 9 November
>2023 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a man he asked
>for a ride. . . .

>Brewer's appeals mostly centered around the testimony of Dr. Gene
>Coons, a psychiatrist who testified for the state that Brewer
>presented a future danger to society - a required element of a death
>sentence in Texas. Coons's methods have been criticized in several
>death penalty cases and are now considered by the courts to be
>unscientific. The appeals courts held in Brewer's case, however, that
>when compared with the rest of the evidence presented at his
>sentencing hearing, Coons's testimony was "not particularly powerful,"
>and that its absence would likely not have changed the result of him
>receiving a death sentence. . . .

what kind of stupid law is that? The future is on predictable. There is
no "science" here at all.

Possible future danger to society cannot be a consideration. Everyone
found guilty should be sentenced based on the nature of the crime and
past bad acts.

On Fri, 10 Nov 2023 16:24:49 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

>David Carson <davidc@wa-wd.com> wrote:
>
>>Brent Ray Brewer, 53, was executed by lethal injection on 9 November
>>2023 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a man he asked
>>for a ride. . . .
>
>>Brewer's appeals mostly centered around the testimony of Dr. Gene
>>Coons, a psychiatrist who testified for the state that Brewer
>>presented a future danger to society - a required element of a death
>>sentence in Texas. Coons's methods have been criticized in several
>>death penalty cases and are now considered by the courts to be
>>unscientific. The appeals courts held in Brewer's case, however, that
>>when compared with the rest of the evidence presented at his
>>sentencing hearing, Coons's testimony was "not particularly powerful,"
>>and that its absence would likely not have changed the result of him
>>receiving a death sentence. . . .
>
>what kind of stupid law is that? The future is on predictable. There is
>no "science" here at all.
>
>Possible future danger to society cannot be a consideration. Everyone
>found guilty should be sentenced based on the nature of the crime and
>past bad acts.

After 1972, Texas and the other states with capital punishment needed
laws that would pass Burger Court muster. This meant that not every
first-degree murderer could be sentenced to death; it had to be the
worst of the worst. Part of the state's response was to narrowly
define what could be called capital murder. That part has pretty much
worked. The other part was to make the trial jury responsible for
deciding whether the guy in the chair was one of the worst of the
worst. That part has not worked.

The questions put to the jury were last updated in 1991, I think,
after the Supreme Court rejected the questions Texas had been
previously using. The idea behind the future dangerousness question is
that some guys are too dangerous to be allowed to live in prison, and
juries are supposed to sentence *only* those guys to death. I
understand what they were going for, and it did pass the Supreme
Court, so it did the job it was meant to do, but the result is, yes,
stupid. The state has to put on this farce of trying to predict what
someone will do in prison. The ones who show up with prior felony
convictions definitely make the job easier, but for the guys just
starting out on their crime career, the state has to be more creative
and bring in expert witnesses like Coons. Then you get guys like
Brewer who wait on their death sentences for 30 plus years and never
hurt anyone else. Then again, prisoners under death sentences have
much less contact with other prisoners and staff than the general
population does, so we still don't really know what would have
happened if he had been sentenced to life instead.

The other question put to the jury is whether mitigating circumstances
exist that would warrant a lesser sentence. Again, this was done more
to satisfy the Supreme Court than anything else, and it has, mostly.
The problem is that the defense's idea of "mitigating circumstances"
always involves a sob story from the defendant's childhood. Juries
listen to all that and then go, "yeah, but he intentionally,
premeditatedly killed a stranger who was being nice to him."

I definitely don't think the jury should be excluded from the
decision, but these two questions have been responsible for tremendous
amounts of appeals, and they will for as long as they are in use. It
would be better for justice if the state could come up with new ones
that make common sense, work, and satisfy the federal courts, but
that's unlikely to ever happen unless they get struck down again.

David Carson